Venice is another city of bridges, a marvel of Engineering and an interesting city. Yesterday we took a day trip to Venice. There we took a walking tour, explored the city for a while, took a gondola tour, and a taxi. There the taxis are boats, so that was interesting. The gondola tour was interesting because we were on what could be considered the honeymoon gondola. Lastly on the walking tour we walked about 1.5-2 miles. Here we saw the back roads of Venice. In Venice they do not drive cars, everything is on islands and the roads are very narrow alleylike walkways.

After grabbing lunch, people broke up into different groups to go and explore. Here I broke off by myself. I figured I would check out the main Basilica in the main square. I was fortunate enough to get inside. The inside looked just ancient. The artwork was old, the architecture was old, and the lighting was old. It was dark, but you could tell that even though the church was old, it was a timeless design. Hundreds of paintings and tons of gold lined the walls. After the Basilica, I went shop and check out some local shops. I found a nice little bookstore, glass shop, and gelato. After exploring around the square I figured I would venture out into the less touristy parts of Venice. There I was slightly more nervous because the back alleyways don’t seem like streets, even though for Venice they are. Since it was lunchtime it was very empty which was slightly concerning. So I figured I would just explore a little more and then head back to the square to meet up with the group to begin the walking tour.

A couple things I have learned in the past couple days.

1. I blend in as Italian much better when I am by myself.

2. Italy seems fairly safe during the day, even if there aren’t many people walking about on the streets. Venice was an interesting city, because streets that you would never walk down in America were perfectly normal in Venice. In America I would never walk down a narrow street in the middle of a new city. In Venice, those narrow streets are all they have.