Venice!

We arrived in Venice at 7:30 am on Easter. We met up with our friend Kelsey in town and then went to our bed and breakfast that was really cute. We just wandered along the narrow streets and canals, admiring how gorgeous everything was. A lot of the houses were old, and prettily colored. They had such a quaint charm, and the complete lack of cars added to the atmosphere. It was so beautiful. We wandered into lots of little shops where they sold really cool glass (Murano class from Venice is world famous) things and there were Venetian masks everywhere! We decided to go out for a good meal that night since it was Easter. They eat around 7 in Italy, which is so much earlier than Spain! We went to a cheaper restaurant and got pasta and some red wine. It was lovely. The next day we wandered some more and found the main plaza. It's absolutely gorgeous. The basilica, their cathedral is stunning. There are also toooons of pigeons. It's crazy! Around the square are lots of upscale cafes, with seats outside and live music playing. We went to get coffee at one but discovered that there was a 7 euro covercharge for sitting outside with the orchestra on top of a 7 euro coffee. Ridiculous! Inside of the Basilica is incredible. There are so many religious mosaics and gold and it covers the entirety of sloping ceiling and arches. There are also 4 horses that were stolen by Venice from Istanbul there a very long time ago when Venice was a huge power in Italy and Istanbul, the capital of the western roman empire, that had taken a lot away from Venice, started to lose power. The history of Italy is so interesting. Everywhere you go, something important happened. It's so cool. I would love to take a class just about the Roman empire. Venice was so beautiful. We also saw a major bridge that was designed by the same architect who did our ciudad de artes y ciencias, which you could definitely tell.
The last day we rode on a gondola!!! It was so exciting. It was just how you imagined a gondola ride would be, beautiful and tranquil. It was preeetty romantic for me, Jenna, and Kelsey, haha. The gondolier pointed out Marco Polo's palace, the oldest Gondolier making place, places where The Italian Job was filmed, and Cassanova's house! It was a perfect day, and the perfect time of day, as we didn't run into any other gondolas. The day before we'd seen a 9-gondola jam on a really touristy stretch and really didn't want that. It was excellent. We ate lots of gelato and I got this really sweet Murano glass necklace. Venice is definitely a must see place for everyone, and it's slowly sinking so get over there!