Exploring Venezia

So by now we have all decided that Italians take traffic rules as "friendly suggestions". I'm on the mini bus from Venice to Florence and if everyone was listening to the "suggestions" it would be much easier to write. 

There are some roads with lines on them but mainly it's just go with the flow. We had the morning free today. At 11:30 we had to be at St. Marco's Square, but from 8:30 to then, we could explore. 

Us and Connor decided to walk the the Grand Canal. There

are many bridges over it but the biggest and best was the Rialto. There were tons of shops inside the bridge and I got a Venice pin to add to my collection. Daddy wanted a lemon freezy thingy but we never found one. However, when we were walking we passed an open air market. Since we hadn't had a snack we bought a "mezzo kilo" of cherries to split. When we kept walking and eating we found the fish market and walked around. It made me miss South America a lot. The market there was just like one we ran into on the beach of Chile. Really... why don't Americans do things like that? 

After the market we went to the church on St. Mark's Square. It was breathtakingly beautiful. The floors and columns were different colors of marble, mostly red, green

and white (the colors of the Italian flag). Even the ceilings were all golden mosaics. Right above the altar were 16 statues of apostles that were also in the mosaics on the ceiling. From the back of the church the mosaics just look like paintings but the closer you got the more you could see the tiny cracks separating tiles. They still held mass there so there were pews and candles. The candles were lit whenever someone had a specific prayer. I lit one but can't tell you who it's for... :) It was a really fun day and we finished it off with gelato and cousin card games.