Venice

This morning’s breakfast served at the hotel was delightful. All of our breakfasts were actually really good. Following breakfast we began our walk around Venice. We walked through a lot of alleys, over many bridges and canals, and though several squares. We also stopped at a lot of souvenir shops with a variety of trinkets.

One of the first shops we stopped at was a hat shop. There were cute hats outside which drew us in, but the hats inside were amazing as well. The lady who owned the shop was very friendly. Like some other vendors she would bring different hats to try on, but she also gave her opinion about which looked good. Brianna ended up getting a hat (which the lady approved of) and so we took a picture of her with her hat and lady who owned the shop.

The most stunning items the vendors and stores had were the masks. Venice is known for masquerade or carnival masks. We saw probably thousands, each slightly different. There were simple masks in bright colors and very ornate masks with feathers, hats ribbons, beads, sparkles and more. Brianna especially loved the masks and bought two.

One of the squares we walked though had a leaning tower. I saw it first through my camera and thought I was just tilting it, but then I looked at it and it was really leaning!

We visited Saint Marks Square and Basilica which was incredible. Brianna and my dad had fun feeding the pigeons and getting them to eat out of their hands.

After they had their fill of feeding the birds we toured the basilica. We weren’t able to take pictures inside, but I wish we could have. The ceilings were covered in mosaic pictures. It looked like the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel but it was all little pieces of tile. It would have been impressive to have one such room, but the entire ceiling which was huge (5-10 rooms) was mosaics. The floor tiles were also very small and intricate. This is a picture of one of the mosaics on the outside of the basilica, as well as a picture of the entire basilica.

As we walked around various places we would frequently hear music playing or people singing. It added to the unique feel of the city. Most of the music was really really good. It would have been fun to get a recording of some of the different music types we heard.

After walking around for a while, and sampling more Gelato (this time I had Mint and Crème), we took a ride around the canal on the boat. The boat was crowded so it was difficult to take very many good pictures, but it was amazing to see the canal. It was huge and filled with boats and gondolas. Some of the men rowing the gondolas actually sang and their voices were amazing!

Following the canal tour we ate some lunch and then continued to walk around. The whole city is gorgeous and everywhere you go there are picturesque canals and bridges and alleys all covered with window boxes overflowing with brightly colored flowers. It is such a beautiful city.

It started to rain in the evening, but the rain didn’t last long. We continued to explore the city as we walked back to our hotel room. We also stopped and had some food and more gelato (I had caramel and hazelnut). We walked around some more and then came back to our hotel to rest for tomorrow.

I thought the price of these sunglasses was a little outrageous (multiply by 1.55 to find the amount in US Dollars).