The “Venice, Anyone?: Italy” episode of Barney & Friends premiered on PBS on September 10, 2009. Emma is trying to finish a school project and cannot play soccer with her friend. Barney and Ruff then show up. The school project is about her family and she has to make a family tree. They then sing a song about families.

To finish project she has to write about an interesting ancestor and the term ancestor is explained. She has pictures of ancestors, but she does not know anything about them. On the back of one photo Barney reads that is of her great-grandfather and the photo was taken in Venice, Italy and she learns that her great-grandfather was Italian. They find the country Italy on the map and notice it is shaped like a boot. They then find some other countries are like shapes. There is then a song about shapes.

They then decide to take a trip to Venice using Barney’s Travel Book and some imagination. They arrive and Venice and the kids first notice that there are no roads. Barney explains about them using boats to get around Venice and gondolas one of the types of boats. They then sing Row, Row, Row Your Boat and learn how to sing it in rounds.

Barney explains a little about Marco Polo, who came from Venice. Riff is then hungry and Barney tells about some Italian foods. The last food he talks about is pizza. There is then a song about pizza featuring other kids.

After the pizza song they meet a woman named Maria and learn how to say hello in Italian. It turns out Maria knew Emma’s great-grandfather. She takes him to the shop that he used to own at. The shop is a mask shop. The masks are for Carnival and Maria explains a little about what that is.

They then get a chance to try mask making. Maria teaches her how to make a mask like her grandfather’s specialty. They teach her by doing it in little steps so it is not as overwhelming. They sing a song about making while they make the masks. Barney notices all the colors in Emma’s mask and it leads to another song featuring other kids.

It turns out that Maria is the girl in the picture with Emma’s grandfather. It turns out she took over the shop from Emma’s grandfather. The bells ring and it is time for her to close the shop and them to go back to the Caboose. Back at the Caboose they sing the “I Love You” song.

Overall this is a good episode in the show’s 13^th season. It is way better at teaching about the country’s culture than the previous Spain episode. It is about the same as the China episode. It is also nice that it teaches about family and encouraging to learn about ancestors.