Our family of 5 (kids ages 15, 13 and 10) will be touring the Doges Palace in the morning, and San Marco after lunch. I assume that the restaurants on the Piazza itself are expensive and touristy. How many blocks from the Piazza do we need to go (and in what direction) to get to some "normal" restaurants? Any recommendations?

The day we went to Doges Palace we went to lunch at Acqua Pazza (3808/10 Campo S. Angelo, San Marco) and had one of our favorite meals of our 2 weeks in Italy. They have a wonderful appetizer de mare - huge with a lot of different seafood you can taste - it was excellent. Our kids (9 and 12 at the time) loved it. Not right near St. Mark's Square but not too far - nothing is that far in Venice.

Acqua Pazza is also one of my favourite restaurants in Venice -particularly on a fine sunny day when you can sit in the campo. However it is not inexpensive! try Cavatappi, campo della Guerra, San marco. Fabulous snacks, salads and light lunches at really reasonable prices. We had lunch there often. It's less than 5 minutes from the Doges Palace.

bookmarking

As soon as you get off the Piazza, especially toware the east, you will hit lots of varied restaraunts. Most restaraunts in Venice will be touristy to some degree, but even a couple of streets away from San Marco will give you lots of choices for restaraunts and shopping. If you have limited time, I would plan to save at least a couple of hours for just wandering around a bit - don't get to stuck on the big buildings.