Journey on

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Venice was great! We were only there for about 24 hours but it really felt like enough time to appreciate and enjoy it. Our hotel was on this quiet canal and our room was awesome. I'm not sure how old the building was but it was definitely hundreds of years. It had these really high beamed ceilings. We spent most of our time exploring the streets and looking in all of the cool shops. Even I enjoyed the window shopping, which is really saying something. We went into the San Marco Basillica and up in the bell tower, too. It really is a cool place. To not have any cars at all is pretty strange but cool at the same time. We stood on the Rialto Bridge and watched the sun set watching all of the boats go by. This morning when we left all of the working boats were out. Its funny to see everything that would normally be a car as a boat. We saw ambulances, garbage boats, police and fire boats, taxis, mail boats, boats with refrigerated goods, drinks, you name it.

I read a lot about how touristy Venice is, and it was, but it wasn't really crowded. I think the time of year helps a lot. We did have 2 seperate people come up to us and say something about the Pirates (Veronika wears more ECU shirts than anyone I know), so that tells you something. She said that hasn't happened to her a single time since she has been in Europe, then twice in 24 hours while in Venice.

The food was OK, we made a mistake and went for the place with the best view, not the best menu. We learned a lesson, though, and I think we will do much better in Rome. We have a sunset tour this evening which should help us learn our way around a little bit. Tomorrow we have a tour of the Vatican, which I am really looking forward to. Hopefully our hotel in Rome will have internet so that I can post this when we get there.

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Photos

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The canal our hotel was on

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Our hotel room

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The view of the canal from our balcony

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Really quiet canal

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Some Gondolas

San Marco
800 year old mosaic on the outside of the church showing St. Mark's corpse being "borrowed" by the Venetians

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View of the island from the bell tower

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San Marco Square

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The shops are awesome. There is a lot of glass from Murano, an island nearby. This store had lots of crazy Murano glass chandeliers

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Rialto Bridge
I hate being in pictures

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There were lots of people hanging out on the side of the canal drinking beer and eating gelatto before dinner and watching people go out on the gondolas...we joined in

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This is from the Rialto Bridge overlooking the Grand Canal

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San Marco square after dark filled with people and bands playing. It was nice but not exactly our kind of crowd

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Early morning--Lots of gondolas covered up and the Rialto Bridge in the background (this is where we were hanging out the night before)

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From the Accademia Bridge over the Grand Canal. That is the Salute Church in the distance with the dome.

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Our canal after dark

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A nice canal a few "blocks" from our hotel

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Most of the water taxis are the best looking wooden boats I have ever seen. This one is a private boat but lots of the taxis are just as nice

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Gondolas

Comments

[Mom]

Gelato & Beer? Uggh.
Wow, I can see why you had such good things to say about your time in Venice. Neat. Wierd--your posting on Rome appeared a long time ahead of this one, when this was the first one. Odd. I'm sure you wondered why I knew about Rome but asked questions about Venice. I had read the other but didn't see this one until this afternoon. Have a great time!