Venice Day 2

The gondolas are covered nightly. This was first thing in the morning when not many people are out and about. When researching info about Venice, I read a lot of people saying to get out early in the morning before all the tourists are out. Well they weren't kidding! It was difficult to walk in St Mark's Square because there were sooooo many people in Venice. And not only that but a lot of the time you'd run into large tour groups with a guide. Try getting through/around those people, lol.

Macen started his morning off with chasing pigeons, AGAIN.

St. Mark's Basilica

We couldn't take pictures inside so this is the sum of it. Very beautiful!

Campanile di San Marco

We took an elevator to the top of bell tower to get a view of the city. We were among the first group to go up at 9am and the bells were ringing. Macen didn't like it and kept saying "Let's get outta here"

St. Mark's Square

The city

Doge's Palace


Gelato

We made it our goal to try as much as the gelato as we could. It was everywhere and if I remember correctly we tried strawberry, lemon, chocolate, cookies n cream, caramel, dolce latte, stracciatella, and mint. Strawberry or lemon ended up being our favorite - it was a toss up because it was perfect warm weather and those flavors were perfect after walking around everywhere. Macen even had some and he has refused ice cream the last couple of summers.


Basilica St Maria del Salute

On the steps in front of the church. Macen loved playing on these steps.

We actually went to this church the previous day but by the time we got there it was closed so we went back. We could take pics without flash. There was a mass that afternoon while we walked through it.

Macen took this pic of us on the side of the church on a bridge. He is quite the photographer!

Wandering

This is what the alleys looked like. You just walk from alley to alley, bridge to bridge to get where you are going. Some alleys are very small, maybe enough for 2 people to walk shoulder to shoulder and others are wider. Also in my research, a lot of people said don't have an iterinary just walk around and see Venice for what it is away from the tourists. We did a good job of that getting lost several times (as much as you can get lost on a small island) and we enjoyed wandering around, taking it all in.

The weather is beautiful, the food is good, the ice cream cold and delicious and we are having a wonderful time. The only problem is that my camera's battery is dead and we didn't bring the USB cord for Shantel's camera so you are going to have wait for the rest of the vacation pictures and stories until this weekend when we have recovered from our vacation.