As Joan said: Venice was beautiful! We had nice sunny days and evenings that were a little cool but comfortable. When we arrived we bought a 3 day pass on the water buses called Vaparettos, so we could hop off and on them all we liked.

We needed the Vaparetto to get to our hotel.

We took a tour of the Grand Canal (Rick Steeves Audio Tour) where we learned that through out history the ships would arrive to load and unload all their goods. Venice was considered the gateway between Europe and the Orient and became very wealthy through trade. Lots of imposing homes and castles.

The architecture reflects this mix of cultures with oriental ornamentation on gothic buildings.

We toured St. Marks Square called La Piazza San Marco in Italian. It's a huge square dominated on one side by St Mark's Basilica a huge cathedral that we also toured. There is so much to see and do in Venice that a few days just isn't enough!

We arrived in Piazza San Marco and it was like we had just joined the rest of the tourists touring Venice. Huge crowds taking pictures like lemmings, we couldn't see the bridge of sighs for all the people standing on it. And lines for everything to buy tickets , to buy trinkets, to buy talismen. We quickly escaped to Gardens north of the Piazza and wandered through the small residential neighbourhoods.

We stayed on Murano Island in a really nice little private hotel. The owners were a great couple and we conversed quite well with the help of google translate 😃

Our hotel was on the edge of one of the islands that makes up Murano and we had a glorious view of Venice and the Cemetery (an island between Venice and Murano.

Murano is where all the glass blowing factories are located and where they make all the beautiful Venusian Glass. We spent a few hours exploring that too!

And spending far too much money on Jewelry!

Thank you Joan for the narrative assist!