The City on the Water

In the morning, we woke up with a big day ahead of us. After leaving our hotel, we rode by train to the center of Venice... a city full of pigeons and people, more pigeons and people than we have seen anywhere else.

We had to figure out the public transportation system first... a whole bunch of vaparettos (boats) that go up and down the canal and around the city. We are always having to face new challenges after we just conquered the last... after feeling good about trains and buses and tubes... now we had to understand the boat system. We thought we had figured things out and ended up hopping on the wrong boat. Funny... that hasn't happened on our trip yet. We eventually made our way to San Marco's Square, the most famous "sight" in Venice.

One thing we have learned is that while we make dumb tourist mistakes ourselves, we hate other tourists... and this place was full of them. There were people packed into the square and just as many pigeons filling the air and sidewalks, flocking to tourists ready to feed the already fat fowl. While the square was a little overwhelming, the basillica itself was stunning. Made of gold mosaic, it literally glows. After about 30 minutes of touristy events, we were tired of it.

So... we got on another vaparetto and headed to one of the four nearby islands, Murano, famous for its blown glass. We walked around the island and saw a couple demonstrations of glass-blowing. It was a breath of fresh air to find some open space and we really enjoyed walking around the island which gave us a sense of the laidback Venetian way of life. We decided to partake and took a canal-side table to eat lunch. We had Italian, of course. Since we were by the water, we knew the seafood would be good... and in a few minutes, we found ourselves eating pasta with tentacles and other slimy who-knows-whats climbing around. We ate every bit, though!

Finally, we boarded another boat and went to the main island to cross the Rialto Bridge. Afterwards, we got lost in the hundreds of alleys, bridges and passageways that cover the city. We were amazed at the view of every bridge we crossed. Venice feels like a completely different world, and we loved it. Even though it seems run-down in parts, it still holds the same magic that it had years ago.

Today we are off to Florence... the home of the Renaissance. Wish you all were here to travel alongside us. Thanks again for keeping up with the blog, though.

Loving and missing you... and excited to see you soon!

Laura and Tripp

ps- a little Gelato update: we have been keeping up with our goal of gelato tasting... we managed to have it three times today including: hazelnut, chocolate, pistacchio, coconut, stractiello (vanilla with chocolate chips or drizzle in it). We've got ten more days in Italy... don't worry, we won't disappoint.