Thursday, January 11, 2007

Venice, Italy

We finally made it to wonderful Venice, Italy. As you already know there are no cars allowed in this island and everyone moves via boats or gondolas. Below you can see the view from our boat going toward Venice:


We went straight into St. Mark's square and I could not believe all the beauty around us. I could not comprehend that little old me was actually there!!! If there is one thing I have learned this year is that anything is possible. The first thing that catches your eye in the plaza is St. Mark's Basilica which was completed on 1105. The walls where all covered in gold leaves inside the Basilica:
Here we are on the Basilica's balcony overlooking the square.


Out of no where a blast of fog came into Venice and even though it got colder (yupi!!..not) it really gave us an interesting view of the city. At least it did not flood like it has in the past. The fog let us take these amazing pictures of Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute and St. Mark's Campanile.



The most famous part about this city is off course the Gondolas!! Here we are in a gondola ride (i thought it was going to tip over but we survived) and a view of the "streets":






















There where 6 people per gondola (we managed to make an all Spanish speaking gondola in which the girls where asking the gondolier lots of questions), except one that only had a couple on it. I said to Orlando "I wonder what's going on?". It turns out that the guy proposed to his girlfriend right there!!!! The gondolas are the 10th best place in the world to propose. If you are wondering the 1st place to propose is in Table Mountain in Cape Town, South Africa (reference: http://www.thisisthelife.com/en/ultimate-places-to-propose/index.htm). Later in the day we found out that a second couple in our tour had gotten engaged in the Rialto Bridge. Go Venice!!! Needless to say everyone was happy that night wishing the couples the best in their new lives together.
Note: A few blocks from our hotel Orlando saw a sign that had a Puerto Rico flag and said "Clases de salsa todos los sabados" (salsa class every Saturday). I guess our musical impact has reached many corners of the world.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I only had time to check out London, Paris, Switz. I have class today "yuck", but I'll come back and keep reading....Hope you guys are having fun in Japan! Hey, how different is the sushi and the sashimi we eat in the US from Japan?

Love you both!
Beba