Venice - An Improbable City

After a relaxing time in Orvieto, we headed to Venice, the last major city we would visit in Italy.  Venice is pretty bizarre with it's canal transportation system.  It also was the first place we started to see Eastern European influences as the city was founded essentially as a trading post with the far East.  As a result, it was a city that (in its heyday) has quite a lot of money and thus glamour.

We arrived in the afternoon and headed out after dinner to St. Mark's Square where every night several orchestras take turns playing in front of their associated restaurants.  We relaxed and took in the square before heading to bed.

The next morning we got up and hopped on on of the vaporettos that serve as buses for the  canals and did an audio tour of the city on the "slow boat" vaporetto that stops at every stop along the Grand Canal.  This was informative and fun.  I like boats.

Our tour stopped back at St. Mark's square and so we decided to pop into the Basilica.  After seeing many church's in Italy, we really were able to see the Byzantine influences on the church (hint - lots of Gold).

After our church visit, we decided it was time to just hang out an enjoy the little side streets and canals of Venice (along with a glass of wine or two).  We wandered aimlessly and just soaked it in.  A nice dinner and our time in Venice came to an end with one last Italian gelato.  Tomorrow - Germany.