Europe Day 18: More Canals in Venice

May 1 dawned clear and beautiful in Venice.  Ok, I don't actually know how it dawned because I was still asleep at that point, but it was gorgeous when we got up.  After our no-hot-water getting ready session, we headed off with rather vague directions to a laundromat.  We actually found it without much trouble, and had some fun times wandering streets and canals while our clothes got cleaned. 

No, they don't have Target in Venice.  That's our bag of laundry soap : )

Bryan sees nice canal...

  

...Bryan decides to hang over nice canal.

Kristi sees nice bridge...

...and goes to find it.  Which proved rather difficult, but was finally accomplished.

After delivering clean laundry ($20 later - ahh!) to our room and having lunch, we headed back to Piazza San Marco to visit Doge's Palace.  Some of the rooms were just as impressive as the ones at Versailles, with intricate carved ceilings and wall-size paintings.

We weren't sure if we were supposed to take pictures inside...so we just took a few.

View from window 1 in Doge's Palace

View from window 2

And view from window 3.  Not bad views.

Courtyard of Doge's Palace

Back out in Piazza San Marco

Next up we visited two other churches - Frari and San Rocco - and enjoyed a little reflection time.  Then we fell back on the great Venice activity - meandering around.  Or as I said, "let's get lost and then find our way back."  This basically ended up entailing walking all over Venice!  We took one route toward the train station, had dinner at a sunny cafe, then wandered back to the hotel through the neighborhoods we hadn't seen yet.  A very nice, relaxing (yet full of exercise) sort of day.  

Love my laundry shots!

Some of the abundance of Murano glass we saw.

After discovering there were shutters on our window to keep the light out, we hit the hay for dreams of a happy Venice.

Europe Day 17: On to Venice!

We got up and out of town April 30, arriving in Venice mid morning.  The Grand Canal outside the train station is crazy - people and boats everywhere!  No cars though...the narrow streets in Venice don't allow for cars, so transportation is either by foot or by boat.  Which was fine with us - we engaged both methods and enjoyed them immensely.  After finding out hotel and having some lunch, we wandered over to Piazza San Marco. 

We just loved all the little canals...and when the "streets" dead-ended into them!

The Bridge of Sighs, thus named because prisoners crossing from the judicial building over the canal into the prison were fabled to get one last glimpse of the outside world through the window, and sigh.  Unfortunately it's currently surrounded with blue scaffolding while it undergoes reconstruction.

How could you not like gondolas!?

There are several tourist attractions on the Piazza, which makes it a hopping place to be!

One of the main features of Piazza San Marco is St. Mark's Basilica.

St. Mark's Basilica was fantastic.  Again, no pictures allowed inside, but the ceiling mosaics and floor tile-work was incredible.  So detailed...and the outside was pretty neat too!

Next up was the correr Museum, also in Piazza San Marco.  We took a few pictures before realizing we weren't supposed to...

Bryan liked the Venice lion...

...I liked growling back at the lion.

Part of the armory

We then back-tracked slightly toward our hotel to check out the Church of San Zaccaria.  It was interesting because most of its "decoration" was in the form of paintings and murals all over the walls, not mosaics or stained glass like many European churches.

Next we engaged in one of Venice's finest activites - wandering the streets!  We ended up at the Rialto Bridge and Market area, which had lots of souvenir stalls and interesting things to look at.  We found a painting that we liked, so we decided to try our luck again and hold on to it this time!

Views of the Grand Canal from the Rialto Bridge

We found an outdoor cafe for dinner, then took "the long" (aka interesting, exploratory) way home, picking up a few souvenirs along the way.  A beautiful day in a beautiful city...the atmosphere of Venice is fabulous, and you can't help but feel happy as you wind your way through narrow streets and over canals, all bursting with charm!