Venice Activities

We are now back in Paris and rested. We did practically nothing for two days since we came back. We're actually enjoying the cooler weather of Paris after the sweltering heat of Venice and Rome!

Today, lets recap Venice part of our trip. As you know, Venice is a surrounded by water. There are absolutely no cars on the island. I don't think I even saw bicycles. So the two forms of transportation is either by the vaporitto (the "bus" system) or by feet. We decided not to take any gondola rides (as romantic as they seem to be) because we didn't think it was worth it. Half the time you're in a crowd of gondolas.....where the drivers are yelling to each other.....and the other half you're under the blazing sun....and gondolas have no shade. It might have been nice right around sunset......when everyone is eating and the sun is not hot anymore, but we didn't.

The first day in Venice we explored the city:

View of the Grand Canal

Ate gelato:

Yum!

walked:

One of the many small canals and bridges

And explored:

The Doge Palace from Grand Canal

And walked:

Another canal

The next day we continued to explore the city. We went to visit the inside of the Doge Palace, we visited the Guggenheim Museum, we took the vaparitto, and we went up the Sainte Marc Campanile.

In front of the San Marco Basilica

Courtyard in the Doge Palace

At the Guggenheim

The Rialto Bridge from the Grand Canal

View of the city

The top of the Sainte Marc Campanile

We also took a tour of the "secret" areas of the Doge Palace, but they did not allow pictures. Neither did the San Marco Basilica. A lot of places actually did not allow pictures. bummer.

We also visited the opera house. The name of the opera house is translated to "The Phoenix". Which is very interesting because it was originally built in 1792 and has gone through two fires since since. They have always rebuilt it and tried to keep it the same. Of course changes were made throughout the years of different leaders and architects. There were no pictures allowed in here as well, but we snuck a couple with our phones ^_^

The ceiling of the theatre. It is actually flat, but the design gives the illusion that the ceiling is dome shaped.

The sides the theatre.

Our last night in Venice we ate at a restaurant right next to the Rialto by the Grand Canal. The food was.....not great, but the view was very nice. It made it worth it.

View from our table

Venetian food is mostly about seafood. We didn't eat any (wayy to expensive) but we did see a lot of fish and other sea creatures around. Like this lobster!

Look at the size of it's claw!!

Venice is also very popular for their glasswork and their venetian masks. They're very pretty, but we didn't get one because we have absolutely no use for it =P But I took a lot of pictures ^_^

That pretty much sums up our trip to Venice. Overall it was a good trip. It was a good experience to see new things and learn about different cultures. However, I'm sure we would have enjoyed it a lot more if it wasn't so hot and so tourists centered.