In many of Venice's streets, you can reach out with both arms and touch the walls on either side. They are dark and cramped and wend around this way and that. This is not the city to visit if you are navigationally challenged!

We asked after a Gondale ride and was offered the "student discount" of 80 euros. At about $1.25 US to the euro, that seems a staggering amount to me and I am a bit reluctant to plop down the fair even though my best friend wants to experience a ride.

After spending the day exploring two sections of the city, we really have no sense of where we have been or where we are going. We did find a public toilet that cost a euro each to use. Could you imagine placing charging in the US? Our inalienable right to public bathroom use taken away! Though, perhaps that would help cut down our national debt.

I digress.

We did a wee bit of shopping, a rather large amount of walking, and, of course, ate more pizza and pasta.

Tomorrow we take a tour of the nearby islands.


NOTE: Climbing up three flights and then some of stairs to our room has NOT gotten any easier after all the other stair climbing that we have done in Florence and Rome. Also, all the bridges across the canals here have...yes, you guessed it...stairs! I long to visit Kansas.