Venice Day 2

After getting some much needed sleep we started off our second day in Venice pretty well rested and ready to go. Today we had a walking tour of Venice which was very interesting and informative. We met at the Royal Gardens (just a small park) to meet up with our guide. After checking in we were given ear phones and device so we would be able to hear the guide while walking around the busy streets of Venice. For those who have never been to Venice or don't know much about it here is a little run down we got from our tour guide. Venice is a city that was built on a number of Islands and each Island is connected by a bridge. In the city of Venice I believe she said there are over 400 bridges. These are very small bridges that take about 5-10 seconds to walk over. No one drives in Venice because there is really no room for a car to go. The streets are small narrow walk ways that remind be of very small alley ways. On many of these streets there is just enough room for one person to walk each direction. Therefore instead of getting round via cars, people walk, take their own boats, a water taxi or the very popular water bus. Once she had given the group a quick over view of Venice we continued out walk toward San Marco Square. San Marco Square was one of the busiest places in all of Venice, that and Rialto which is where there are many many tourist shops. She described the history of Venice and how the winged lion that was present all over Venice is the symbol of the city. We then made our way to Basilica Di San Marco. This was is a very old and beautiful church that use to be the private church of the Doge of Venice. We then toured the church and it was extraordinary inside. There were pictures that depicted stories from the bible and the covered the ceilings of the church. Next we continued our tour to some more quite areas, where there weren't as many tourists rushing around. Our tour ended 2 hours later in Rialto. Then everyone went their separate ways and we headed to lunch where we had our first Italian Pizza. After eating probably too much pizza we shopped the rest of the day and ended the night with gelato and wine.