Ah, Venezia. City of lights, canals, and expensive straw hats

We arrived to Venezia in the middle of the afternoon after another series of trains from La Spezia. We took our first vaporetto (water bus) down the Grand Canal to our hotel. No cars, only boats. First stop: Jewish museum tour and kosher food in the Jewish Ghetto. Made our first tourist purchase - a Murano glass mezuzah for only 8 euro, thankyouverymuch.

The next day, we started in San Marco piazza. After visiting Doge's Palace, San Marco's Basicilia, and completing a very information Rick Steve's podcast (free), we sat down to eat our tomato foccacia while surrounded by pigeons (Lili's worst nightmare). A few vaporetto rides later, we arrived at the Peggy Guggenheim museum, which is actually her personal collection shown in the home she owned in Venice. Cool.

We started the day at Murano, the island where Venetian glass is made. Natan ate his heart out at Venini, the (apparently) famous and designer Italian glass maker. We also saw some incredibly small glass bottles for 3 euro each (that Natan would like me to mention because he didn't purchase them and now regrets it every time he walks past a glass store in Venice). Pizza! for lunch in the Jewish Ghetto.

We went to shul at the synagogue in the Ghetto - lots of black iron chandeliers, really tall candles, and beautiful but very uncomfortable wooden benches. We had the nicest Chabad dinner (and lunch) at the Gam-Gam restaurant, with some really nice people. We also met a couple from Monsey who were cousins of Yael Berkowitz and had just come from her wedding in Israel.

On Saturday night, we were just walking around, eating gelato.......and bumped into our NEIGHBORS, Annu and Preeti, from our apartment in Berkeley. Whaaaaaaat?! Literally, our NEXT DOOR neighbors.

Venice, overall, is beautiful. We walked and walked without getting tired of seeing gondolas, laundry hung over canals and alleys, and the colorful, crumbling buildings.

This morning, we visited a few palaces -- housing key works from past Biennales, a prince's ridiculously huge collection of samurai swords and Japanese artifacts, and 16th century costumes.

We leave today for our final stop in Italy -- Florence.

Lili.

P.S. Natan is very upset he has not seen any venetian blinds the whole trip.