We came into Venice on the train and met a nice family from New Zealand that was traveling as well. Some of my favorite things about traveling is all the nice people that we meet along the way.
It was good that our hotel was right across the canal from the train station. The hotel staff was nice and gave us directions and got us set up to explore the city.
We wandered through the maze of the city until we found St. Marco's square and it was dark by that time.
Along the way we stopped at a few places and visited a church and a museum.
It was on the eve of All Saints Day so there were performances in the church. It was so peaceful and relaxing to sit in the church and listen to the organ music and the soloist perform. I was touched by the music and the paintings in this little church. Instead of large, ostentatious portraits of rich people in biblical paintings it showed broken and downtrodden people being comforted by Christ. I could have stayed the whole time to listen to the concert but I was grateful for the 15 minutes or so that I got.
Since it was All Saints Day
When we got to the square we went to the top of the tower and got a great view of the city.
Visiting at night made us that much more exited to come back again during the day time.
In the square there were people shopping, eating and enjoying the music being played.
We ended up taking a water taxi back to the hotel to save us the long walk back.
Venice was enchanting and it has been my favorite city in Italy so far. Venice is like a real life Disneyland, even with the crowds.
That night at the hotel I got a message from my mom saying my dad was back in the hospital after a fall and being weak. She then messaged that Dad was going to die very soon. We didn't know what that meant and we called my mom who told us that dad was in a medically induced coma and he had an infection in his stomach that they didn't know if he would recover from. It was a hard night and we had already had plane tickets to see him the weekend we got back from Italy so I was hoping he would make it that long. Michelle and Reise immediately left what they were doing and drove down to be with mom and dad which was a great comfort to my mom.
Since there was nothing we could do for my dad at the moment we tried to enjoy the rest of our trip and call to check in with my mom as much as we could.
Our buffet the next morning was amazing and had everything you could want for breakfast, a lot of things from local bakeries and restaurants.
We were booked to take a tour of a glass factory on Murano island that morning.
We got to see a glass master at work and they explained the process to us.
Afterwards we were brought to a studio where they had things you could buy for thousands of dollars each!! It was nice to look at but way too much money. (No pictures were allowed of the art pieces) We ended up buying something cheaper in the gift shop downstairs so at least we had something to take back home.
Walking through the streets you never knew what you were going to see. Even the doorknockers were interesting to look at.
We just took in the sites at the city and enjoyed what we could while we were there.
Our favorite part of the basilica was going to the second story and exploring the murals on the roof and looking out over the city.
Some of our favorite things in Venice was...
some of the shopping
trying real Italian Lasagna
the water bus ride down the Canal
music in the piazza and seeing the churches
walking down the winding streets with a new view at every corner
the best fresh pasta take away place...
A little over a week after visiting Venice there was massive flooding and all of these places that we visited would have been inaccessible and our hotel would have been flooded. We are grateful we go to see what we did when we got to see it!
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