Venice

We drove three hours from Pula to Venice and arrived by lunch time. The drive was smooth and we weren’t delayed at either the Slovenian or Italian border crossings. We quickly booked ourselves into a hotel in Mestre and took a bus across the causeway to Venice.

We got off the bus at Piazza Roma and slowly wandered through the streets on our way to Piazza Saint Marco, one of the most famous squares in the world. While wandering the streets and canals we found an exhibit on some of Leonardo daVinci’s inventions. There were all sorts of replicas of various machines he had built. On some we were able to pull ropes, or turn cranks and see how pulley or gear systems worked. Fun for all of us!

Soon we made our way over the Grand Canal with all its business and on to the square. I was a bit disappointed because there was a stage and equipment in the square, taking away from its beauty. We stood in line to see Saint Mark’s Basilica. It’s quite beautiful from the outside, but even more so on the inside.

We went through the church with a huge crowd of people. It has mosaics all through the ceiling. Those tiny gold tiles are pieced together to make some pretty spectacular images! We climbed the stairs for the view and the gallery at the top of the church, but it wasn’t that great because of the previously mentioned stage.

The square is not really a square. It’s really more like an “L”. The larger part had the stage, but the smaller part made for a nice picture. The architecture here is so gorgeous.

The large canal is pretty spectacular, but the small ones are very romantic. We looked in at some souvenir shops. They have beautiful coloured glass jewellery and decorations. I didn’t buy anything because I want to visit the glass making factory first.

We didn’t take a gondola ride today. Maybe tomorrow. We did stop our souvenir shopping to take a look at the gondolas. Nadim, ever the romantic, said “ah, it’s just a boat, kinda like the one we had in Kerala (India),” but Yasmin pointed out that these ones had much nicer seats!

We had some pizza at a street-side restaurant for lunch and pasta at a nice place near the square for dinner. When in Venice, ...

CM