the floating city, that's sinking???

And we're off... to Venice that is! Thursday morning the trip began. The Euro Star (our train) and two hours later we had arrived in the floating city of canals and you guessed it... gondolas! As soon as we walked out of the train station, it hit us. We really were in a city surrounded by water. We were welcomed by a beautiful pedestrian bridge crossing the main canal. And by the way, did you know that Venice has the most bridges out of any city in the world??

Our first stop for the day was purchasing a 12 hour vaporetti pass. A vaporetti is much like our version of a bus, however, in Venice it is a large boat. These boats serve as the main form of public transportation throughout the city. Please note that these things are by no means fast. It took us approximately forty-five minutes to get from the train station to the San Marco area across town. With small canals and numerous boats, speeding is kept to a minimum. Also note, cars are nowhere to be found in this city. Venice is composed of narrow footpaths, making traveling with any form of wheels next to impossible. We enjoyed this.. Being able to freely stroll the streets without having a car or vespa honk at us to get out of the way, quite nice.

After purchasing our vaporetti pass, we headed over to the Piazza of San Marco which serves as the principle square of the city. The square is famous for it's architecture and pigeons. Yes, pigeons. There are everywheerrreee. St. Mark's Basilica and St. Mark's church tower along with the Doge's Palace define the square. St. Mark's Basilica is one of the best known examples of Byzantine architecture and is pictured below. Unfortunately we weren't able to visit inside, the line was extremely long. So instead, we played with the pigeons. Jaclyn ended up having a photo shoot with these peculiar birds. Check out the images...

We paused for a lunch break and then went to the Accademia, an art museum consisting of pre-19th century art in Venice. After an hour or so in there and a gelato break, we headed to the most anticipated part of our trip... the gondola ride. Yes, we must admit, we HAD to do it. Even though it's a tad pricey, who can say they came to Venice without riding a
gondola??? "Gondoliers" as we call them, are everywhere, well at least in the target touristy areas. They're easy to point out. Just look for a man in a horizontal striped blue or red shirt, solid navy blue pants and a straw hat with a ribbon matching the color of their shirt. We both found our perfect gondoliers, talked them down to 70 euro and hopped right in. Check out the interior of these tiny boats. Pretty stylish.

Our afternoon closed up with a little bit of shopping along the waterfront. We had hoped to go the Murano glass island but missed the last vaporetti headed out there. Instead we all purchased a few goodies and headed back to the train station. Around 9:30 we arrived back in Firenze where we closed the night out by watching fireworks along the Ponte Vecchio. June 24 is Saint John the Baptist's birthday and is celebrated in the city of Florence every year. The town is filled with many activities throughout the day and ends the day with a full out firework celebration in the Piazza Michelangelo. Hundreds of people lined the streets along the Arno to watch the thirty minute display.. not a bad way to end a day.

Since Venice is a wee bit different than your average city we decided to share a few facts with you all..
- Only three to four Gondolier licenses are issued annually. To qualify, applicants must be able to finish an extensive training after passing a rigorous exam. There are only 400 licensed Gondolas operating in Venice today.

- There's a lot of research going in to whether or not Venice is sinking. We encourage you to google it and found out a little more about it!

- Did you know that Marco Polo was born in Venice? In the year 1254 to be exact!

Excerpts from our journals:
" Small bridge, small kiss... Big bridge, big kiss...." (Our Gondolier during our tour of the town.. you can only imagine)

" Is is bad that we find ourselves strolling through the San Lorenzo market for a nice ego boost? " (Our reaction to the attention any girl receives when wondering through the market)

This weekend we have been laying low in Florence, getting goodies for our friends back in the States, cleaning up our apartments, and beginning to pack up. Monday we will have our final feast at the La Tancia Winery and Tuesday Duncan's class is making a visit to Sienna for the day. Just a few adventures left before our exciting journey comes to an end. My oh my how time flies. Until our next blog,

Molto Amare,

Jack and Jenn

CIAO!!!