Venice

If you guessed that this picture was taken in St Mark's Square in Venice you were absolutely right!!I giggled as we had someone take this picture for us....we were in Venice!!! But let's backtrack just a bit first.

Our adventure began on Tuesday morning, June 8th when dear friends picked us up to take us to the Airport. The alarm had gone off at 5:00 am and it was going to be a very long day. First we flew to Calgary where we met up with friends T & R and then we flew on to Frankfurt, Germany where we arrived early Wednesday morning. I was so thankful that over all these years I have kept up my German because it sure came in handy several times over the trip.

From there we flew to Venice where we arrived at 9:30 am. We bought a 2 day pass for their transit system and were off to catch the bus which would take us to the station where we would board the vaparetto or water bus. To say that we were in awe as we motored along the canals would be a huge understatement!

Venice spans 118 islands with a well-planned web of 150 canals and 400 bridges. Probably the most famous bridge is the Rialto Bridge built in 1591!! It is 419 years old!!!

We took so many pictures on the way to our hotel.....we just wanted to capture every single memory!

The heart of Venice centers around St. Mark's Square where people from around the world gather from morning to night. The Basilica San Marco was built in 830 and then rebuilt during the 11th century in it's present style...it was impressive to say the least!

We were given wrong directions to the hotel so we definitely saw a lot before we finally ended up at the right station and found the quaint old Hotel Bellini(and yes they did serve bellini's for those that are wondering!)

We had a beautiful room to call home for Wednesday night and once we settled in we headed back to the vaparetto station to see some more of the city. 

Gondoliers were everywhere, showing visitors the city from the traditional gondolas. We were amazed at how easily they steered and moved them with a single pole.

Thankfully we had all day Thursday to walk through the city before we embarked on our ship around 6:00 pm.

There was so much more to see so we decided we would love to come back to this magical city one day, but for now we had to say goodbye. There were other ports to see! In the meantime the sail-away was absolutely spectacular as we sailed down the Grand Canal and right by St Mark's Square one last time.