The first full day in Venice! Of all the places we’ve been this is the only one where I had previously been – 52 years ago! While I lived in Denmark as a teenager I took a small bus tour from Denmark, through Germany, Austria and into Italy, to Venice. While the main things look as I recall, the number of tourists is rather insane.

We began the day going downstairs for breakfast. Best hotel coffee yet! Our hotel is near St Mark’s Square with a canal right behind us, with lots of gondola floating past, complete with serenading musicians.

We started out by heading to the Campanile, where I thought I had booked us tickets to climb to the top. But it was the first time that the tickets got messed up. Though Tiquets, the app I used to purchase tickets ahead said it was for the Campanile, it turned out it was for St Mark’s Basilica, with the Pala d’Oro. We decided it was meant to be. So we skipped the climb and went to the Basilica. It was totally remarkable, even for us non religious ones.

We left the Basilica and walked over the Rialto bridge, built in 1591. We then headed for the Vaporetti to take us off to the island of Murano, famous for all the glass. We wandered up and down the main walkway, stopping for some wine and paninis. Believe it or not we bought no glass. I think we were frankly over whelmed.

We got back on a Vaporetti and headed to the island of Burano, a half hour boat ride. The island is known for its colorful houses. We walked up and down the streets, eventually stopping for today’s gelato.

Back to the boat dock we picked up one that would take us back to the main part of Venice. We decided it was time for an afternoon pick me up so we had drinks and ciochetti, the Venetian version of tapas.

Then it was on to our last tour of the day, the Doge Palace. What an amazing place. Totally overwhelming in the decorations and artwork. We even walked through the prison and across the Bridge of Sighs, where prisoners got their last glimpse of Venice before being imprisoned or executed.

By then our dogs were barking. All of us needed some down time back at the hotel. Silas gamed, I blogged and Jayne and Gulgun figured out where to go for dinner. A thoroughly packed sight seeing day.

Dinner was in this fabulous little restaurant off of a large square. We had a marvelous meal, with not a single moment of being rushed. Jayne had brought the spinning, flying toy Silas got in Florence and the large plaza was the perfect place for him to fly it after we ate. Gulgun had wanted tiramisu for dessert but unfortunately yet were out of it so we walked off looking for other dessert options. We ended up getting canolis but seeing the Rialto bridge at night was actually the evening’s highlight.