VENICE!

Today we head to the land of canals and blown glass...you guessed it...VENICE!! (or Venezia for all those who are in the Italian "know") We left Verona by train this morning at around 8 (7:59 to be exact). As we sat on the train trying to pass time we bonded with the family across the isle. Although we didn't share a common language we were all plugging our ears to drown out the family sitting behind us. (One of our new friends even pulled out some earplugs...) When we got off the train we looked at the noise-makers to find that they only had 3 kids...not the 10 that we had thought were necessary to be so loud. Throughout this trip I have constantly been told about how loud Americans are...guess the Italians are in the contest too.

When we finally got into Venice we headed over to the Tourism Office to grab a pass for the boat-bus. As soon as the grumpy lady behind the counter had given us our passes we headed over to the dock to hop on the first boat to Saint Mark's Square. It was really cool to boat down the Grand Canal and see all the buildings. According to our guidebook, Venice is one of, if not the best preserved city in the world. There are laws governing building and renovations. We also learned that because Venice is so expensive to live in people are moving at a rate of about 1,000 per year. Rick Steves says that people are concerned that soon Venice is going to become a Disneyland. Simply a tourist attraction with shops and no locals. But for now it is just humid and hot.

When we got off the boat we were instantly surrounded by vendors all selling the exact same trinkets. We decided to just wander for a bit. After all it is an island...how lost can we get?? We decided our "wandering" starting point should be Saint Mark's Square. After we got there and took some pictures we chose a street and started walking down it. Venice was everything that you could imagine it being...lots of little water ways filled with cheesy Italian men dressed as gondoliers...oh and dont for get the tons of tourists and the guys selling the fake Louis Vuitton's (as they try to convince you that it's a real one...). As annoying as these guys were, I decided to practice my haggling technique. After all, what if I wanted to buy something? So as we wandered down the streets of Venice I would constantly bargain. (I even got a guy down from 95 euros to 20 euros for a "real" Louis Vuitton!! What a deal!)

After all that bargaining (and no purchasing) we decided to head into the museums. First we went to the Correr Museum on the far side of the square from Saint Mark's Cathedral. We bought tickets that gave us access into all the museums in Saint Mark's Square. The Correr Museum documents Venice and it's progress. It contains maps and charts of the city over the years as well as the various coins that have been in circulation...very riveting. After the Correr we headed over to Doge's Palace.

On our way to the palace we were distracted by the oppurtunity to feed the Saint Mark pigeons. Lucy pulled out and crumpled up some crackers we had snagged from our breakfast...then we were ATTACKED! Pigeons came from everywhere! As Lucy stood there making more crumbs the pigeons attacked again! This time they went straight for her hand!! Watching Lucy shriek and throw her arms in the air was hilarious.

After recovering from the ambush of birds we continued to Doge's Palace. Now this was cool. This was the residence of the Doge of Venice. Most of what is seen today was constructed from 1309 to 1324. After we cut the line (since we had our passes to get in from the Correr), we looked around the courtyard then when up "The Golden Staircase". When we got to the top of the stairs we zig-zagged through a maze of rooms.We found a room with the largest oil painting in the world. We also found the oldest oil painting in the world. It was interesting. This old oil painting was found behind another one as they were moving stuff around.

After the upstairs we went down into the prison. It was cool...literally and physically. The prison cells were really small and were kind of sad looking. But at the same time I loved being down there...it was a nice break from the heat. After visiting Saint Mark's we went on a hunt for some lunch. We stumbled upon a small pizzeria and had our first real Italian pizza!! SO YUMMY! It was just a simple cheese, but delicious! After tasty pizza and some cold, refreshing water we headed over to Murano to observe some of the worlds finest blown glass! It was amazing to watch one of the master glass-makers blowing different things out of glass. We

would have watched for longer, but the heat from the furnace was more then we could handle. We headed into the gift shop to observe some wonderfully finished and air conditioned blown glass. After looking at some incredibly expensive glass items and watching an Indian woman knock over a bunch of glass items, we hopped on the boat back to Saint Mark's. After the three of us woke up from our nice little nap on the boat, we went through some of the shops. We found some good deals (Lucy and I haggled for some frames and Whit for a fantastic Venetian carnival mask)

Then we met up with one of our friends from Annecy, Natasha, our group gelato expert. We went to find the best gelato in Venice, but we never able to locate it. So we made our way to the closest boat-bus and hopped onto the train to Verona...I wonder what tonight will bring...