Venice!

Wow, wow wow! Venice was seriously the most beautiful city I have ever seen. I was just so fascinated by it. Picture 150 canals, 117 islands, 400 bridges and 0 cars. Then listen to the sounds. No motors, no honking, just the chatter of people and birds throughout the island to be joined by the tantalizing smell of the ocean, fish and amazing food. Venice was the picture perfect city. I think I took a bajillion pictures of the similar subject, canal, bridge and cute little houses. All so different in their own way that you can't help not to take a picture. Here are some examples :)

Once we checked into the creepy hostel, A Venice Museum, we decided to make our way to the main attraction in Venice, San Marco Basilica. I have to admit that I was pretty confident that I could succesfully get around any city in the world after my 5 months in Europe. However, Venice, like el centro de Sevilla was filled with skinny little nameless streets that twisted and turned and then ended up being dead ends. After about a 1/2 hour of trying to use the map, we just decided to use the "go in the general direction" and "follow the people" plan of action, and it worked pretty well.

While Rome was the most crowded city and hustle/bustle city I've been to, Venice was the laziest. There are probably less than 6 big attractions to see with 4 of them being museums, which we didn't want to do. What we did go to, as I mentioned before, was the San Marco Basilica which was my favorite church ever (and I've seen about a bajillion). We couldn't take pictures, but I'll steal some off the internet to give you an idea of the fabulous golden interior that was San Marco.

Prettiest outside annnd inside!

Literally the reast of the day we did nothing but get lost in the narrow streets of Venice, have a long relaxing lunch served by a man named Fabio, and go to the park and read/ Although I felt that we should be going, going goin, we had a good full day set up for Thursday and decided to "do as the Venetians do" (as Alaina liked to say) and enjoy the city the relaxing way.

Thursday was such a fun day. We got up early and jumped on a bus (which is actually a boat!) and headed out to two of the more popular islands off of Venice. The first one was called Murano and is really famous for their glass making. (If you didn't know, Venice sells the most beautiful glass pieces ever! Alaina and I bought all kinds of jewelry from the different stores in Venice.) Murano was built a lot like Venice with canals and such, but definitely wasn't as pretty. I think of the island as more of a factory island. There were a few little factories and glass blowing shops which we got to see, but it was more industrial then anything else.

The next island we headed to was called Burano and was about a 45 minute boat ride from Venice. It was the cutest island I have ever ever seen! Every single building was brightly colored. Pictures do not do this place justice! It was just so cute!!! It is also famous for their lace making, so lots of lace stores were all over the streets, which was really neat.

As you can tell, Venice was just the all around cutest city ever! While there wasn't much to do and I definitely wouldn't suggest staying more than 2 days (or even a day), it is still a city everyone HAS to see!!!