Venice Day 2

Today we went on our Island tour of Murano, Burano and Torcello.
This tour started near San Marco Square as well. While we were waiting we met a nice couple who we talked with both before and during the tour.
Murano is were the glass-makers live and work. Our tour included an opportunity to watch the glass-makers work. Then we made our way to their gallery - um.... wow. The first floor was amazing and expensive. The second floor was spectacular and EXPENSIVE. After exploring that island for a bit, we got back on the boat and went over to Burano. This is were they create lace. We saw one woman working on a piece and another woman explained the process of creating lace - each person only knows one stitch, so most pieces are created by several people. Again, we got to explore a bit but needed to make our way back to the boat - and we were the last ones - oops. The last Island was really just to walk around. We took some fun pictures and just meandered around a bit. After we returned to Venice, Michelle and I walked around and did some shopping (of course) and eventually made our way back to the apartment for dinner and an evening in again - we didn't want to be up too late because we'll have a big day tomorrow.

Link to Murano and Burano Island Tour

Venice: Day 1

Our first day in Venice was spectacular. We got up slowly and then meandered our way over to where our walking tour started near San Marco Square. This was the first part of our Venice Walking and Boat tour. Our tour guide explained many things - how Venice developed, former governments, and architecture. We also had a tour of the S. Marco Basilica (which is ornate - marble and gold again). After that we walked around some of the less traveled areas of Venice (not the entire 'island' as we only had two hours). Venice is just unique and I love it. After the walking tour ended we had a few hours until our boat tour, so we went back to the apartment for lunch and did some exploring. Finally, it was time to head over for our boat tour and we got a bit lost. We did find our way, but time was running close, so we ran across San Marco square and made it with 5 minutes to spare - and the tour guides weren't even there yet. Whoo - time to catch our breath. The boat tour was just as interesting and beautiful as the walking tour. After, we went back to the apartment for supper and the rest of the evening.

Link for Venice Walking and Boat Tour

Travel Day: Rome to Venice

Today went really well. We were ready to leave in plenty of time and made our way to the train station without incident. There we bought some lunch and waited for our train. Traveling by high speed train is really nice, especially if you enjoy looking out the windows.

Walking out of the train station in Venice was a momentous experience. Rome was nice, but felt a bit constricting (not sure how else to describe it), but Venice was reinvigorating... and relaxing all at the same time. Our host had previously contacted me to explain how to get near to the apartment (we took the water bus line 1 to San Silvestro) and then she met us and took us the rest of the way there. Here is our Venice Apartment. It's location was amazing - we had a grocery store just down the street, were just a 2-3 minute walk from the Grand Canal, and just a 7-10 minute walk from the Rialto Bridge.

We ate out that night, but bought groceries for our other meals.

Here is a link to our Rome Apartment. I've also added it to my first Rome post.

And here is our video Travel day to Venice