Italy with the Campbells - Venice

On Tuesday, we spent the whole day in Venice.  Our hotel had breakfast, so we took advantage of that and were surprised to find garden gnomes in the breakfast area.  This hotel was quite interesting!  After breakfast, we took a bus into Venice.  Rather than taking a water bus around, we decided to walk through Venice in order to see a bit more of it.

Our first stop was San Marco Square which is probably the most famous area of Venice.  We first went into the church there and got to hear a choir singing for a service they were having.  This church was built in the Byzantine style, so it was much different than any that we had seen previously.  I really liked the marble on the outside.

In San Marco Square, we also checked out the pigeons, found a library, and saw a couple on the way to their wedding.  Brian really liked the 24-hour clock that was on one of the towers in the square.  We then made our way in the direction of Murano and stopped for sandwiches on the way.  Murano is an island that is separate from Venice, but still part of the city.  This island holds all the glass-making industry of the city.  When this first started, they put this whole industry on a separate island to protect the rest of Venice from possible fires. 

We took a water bus over to Murano, saw a store where they show you how they make the glass objects, and then headed into the main street of the island which is lined with different stores selling handmade objects from Murano.  We all ended up buying quite a few souvenirs and gifts from here because it was all so beautiful!

We then took the water bus back to Venice (which was not very fun because of lots of people!) and stopped for a dinner of pasta.  We all got something different and all really enjoyed what we got.  We then walked back to the bus station and made our way back to our hotel and some gelato!