Happy Monday–hope y’all had a fabulous weekend! I figured it was time to post some of my favorite pictures from Italy. Our night train from Munich lead us to a cloudy and chilly day in Venice. After leaving our bags at the hotel, we headed out to see the sights. First up, we visited Venice’s glass island called Murano, by public boat transportation, of course. In 1291, all the glassmakers of Venice were forced to move to Murano due to the risk of fires. We watched a glass blowing demonstration once on the island.
Afterwards, we walked around the island to do some shopping : ) This is probably the place I had the most fun walking around shopping. The guys, not so much. This island could make anything out of glass. I managed to make it out with only a pair of earrings and a little square earring plate (which I accidentally dropped at the boat dock and had to buy a replacement…oopsie daisies!).
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It was dreary the whole time we were on the island…sigh |
Next, we visited Burano, the island of lace. Here you can catch ladies making lace by hand. Burano was much more colorful than Murano.
Next we headed back to the heart of Venice. Of course we had to take a gondola ride. We chose to ride on the main canal, then on a smaller canal.
Did you know that they do not actually sing to you during a gondola ride?!? I guess I had assumed they did because they always do in the movies. Even though I was forewarned about this, I was still a little disappointed. We passed one gondola that had hired an accordion to play during their ride.
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Grand Canal |
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The Gondola industry has become a wee bit touristy…can we say traffic jam? |
After our gondola ride, we headed back through the city to our hotel, passing all of the major sites.
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Rialto Bridge |
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Saint Mark’s Cathedral |

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The water was pretty chilly! |
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Group pic! |
After reading all of your posts I get the feeling that this was a very hilly trip with lots of walking. I bet you guys walked more than 100 miles! Venice looks like a beautiful place to visit.