So there is a reason why people always suggest going to Venice if you are to ever visit Italy. BECAUSE IT'S AWESOME!! Sorry for the yelling, I just get excited easily! This was the 1 place Matt emphatically said, "we ARE going", when we said back to Italy. He didn't care where else we went. Only Venice was on his agenda. So I then gave him the reins to book a place and figure out what he wanted to do. Only part of that happened. but oh well, it was a good combo effort! He did book a beautiful old palace for our hotel (and broke the budget BIG time! I guess that's allowed when you make the big bucks :0 ) and it was in good walking distance to the major sites. Although we have said if we are to ever go back we're going to stay in another part of the city, on the other end really, so we can explore there better. But here's a MAJOR heads up everyone: in case you didn't know, Venice is CRAZY expensive! So make sure you budget for everything-I think the cheapest thing we got was the umbrella at the kiosk for 4 euros. Sure you can buy really crappy knock-off plastic masks for 2 euros but that's not what I'm talking about, and we didn't get those cheapos anyway. Thankfully we went when it wasn't too hot so it wasn't stinky at all. Sadly, it did rain a little bit but not so much it deterred us from walking around. And Matt lucked out in that we didn't go see any art museums. I would have loved to go to the Academia or the Peggy Guggenheim Museum (I've been before and it's amazing!) but I knew the poor guy would get more later in the trip so I used my museum card sparingly ;)
Taking in the sites on the water taxi.
St. Mark's square was intermittently busy, depending on the rain situation. It took a few tries to NOT get people right next to us.
Gross. Don't people know pigeons are basically rats with wings. We saw people feeding them and letting holding them. Again, gross.
So handsome!
Inside the basilica. Again, mosaics and gold plating everywhere. It's kind of overwhelming at times.
Of course everywhere you look in the canals you see gondolas. They are pretty looking but not the most efficient way to see things!
On the Rialto Bridge. That place was PACKED! And the wears were even more expensive!
The Bridge of Sighs. Very interesting history and we've seen it's replica in Bath!
We went to a classical music concert which was very nice. The music was great!
On a taxi headed to Murano Island!
Seeing a glass blowing demonstration on Murano. He made that horse in no time!
Rialto Bridge-it was a cool building/bridge!
A beautiful old clock-look how interesting it is!
Back inside St. Mark's Basilica. So much gold!
I feel this sums up Venice perfectly, canals, gondolas, and churches.
Classic Venice!
Such a stud!
Having so much fun on the boat tour!
View from our hotel room. Loved seeing the hanging flowers!
The architecture of this city is truly amazing!
This is one city you could spend days just wandering around, getting a little lost, and seeing some really beautiful old buildings. The history of it is fascinating as well. Even if you only have a few days, Venice is very much worth a visit!
