Venezia!!!!!

Today we wandered around the wonderful pedestrian and boat-only city. Also, for those of you following along at home who think Pittsburgh still has the most bridges, try having no highways...or roads. I'm pretty sure even if Venice doesn't have the most "bridges" in the world, it's so cool that ought to have 1st place on the list.



And yes, if a sidewalk doesn't go to your house, well, get a boat.



We took a tour of Venice and got completely and utterly turned around. Luckily, our guides knew where we were the whole time and took us down narrow streets (even for Europe, they're really narrow. We're talking like 4-5 feet wide.)


We peeked inside St Mark's Cathedral, including the 28,000 (yes, 3 zeros) square feet of glass mosaics.



We were treated to a glass blowing demonstration by a local "maestro", or "master". He made it look ridiculously easy, but I guess if you need to apprentice for 15 years in order to become a master, you get kinda good at something. He made two pieces while we watched, one was a vase, and the other was a horse (it needed to be completed in under 1 minute because of the style before the glass would harden. I'm pretty sure he did it in about 30 seconds.) We went to the store adjacent to the factory and looked at some of his original works. Those of you following along at home might know the phrase "Venetian glass" or "Murano glass". Well, this is how it's made, and why it's so expensive.

(if you don't believe this is the guy, notice the heat rising off the glass- it was 1000 degrees C about a minute before that)



Oh yeah, apparently gondolas are kind of a big deal over there too...




Our journeys tomorrow will include:

Singing 10:00 and 11:00 masses at St. Anthony's Basilica in Padua -Padova- (Padua as in St. Anthony of Padua)and then taking a break by the lake near our hotel. We've had a little rain recently, but we've also had an extremely hectic schedule. The time to relax will be greatly appreciated by all of us.