Venice

Venice was one of my favorite stops in Italy. My hometown is situated on a peninsula and you can see water from just about every location in the city so I felt a little bit at home in Venice which stretches across 118 small islands. Lots of water everywhere!

We had two days to explore Venice. Since Jerel has been there before, we skipped out on doing a guided tour and just discovered the city on our own. The picture here is a view from our cruise ship of Piazza San Marco. It was so crowded there! We visited St. Mark's Basilica and the famous bell and clock towers.

I found Venice to be a great city for window shopping. We saw beautiful Venetian masks which have been hand crafted in the city for centuries. They are worn during the Carnival of Venice (which the rest of us refer to as Mardi Gras). We also saw lots of lovely jewelry featuring Ventian glass. A lot of it comes from Murano and all of it is gorgeous! I bought a couple of necklaces there and am complimented on them all the time. I love to smile and say "Oh, this old thing? I just picked it up last time I was in Venice..."