The conversation went like this:

Mark:  If you could go anywhere in Europe for a day, where would you go.

Me:  Venice!

Mark:  Really?  Venice?  I never would have thought that.

So, I had to explain.  Ireland is top choice.  But that is a two week trip.  Not a day.  I don’t think I could handle being in Ireland for just a day.  Paris would be amazing but we thought that might be a trip for later.  I’ve always wanted to see Venice and the water streets.

Because Mark is awesome, he made it happen.  We found a cheap hotel.  We ate cheaply and we toured cheaply.  But, we did it.   Mark said this was the plug for the islands.  Open it and we are all going down.  Really, it’s a well of some sort.  We saw several people getting water out of it.

Just pretty fresh fruit. We could not get over the architecture and art in general. San Marcos Plaza

Amazing! Bascilica de San Marcos.  Ya’ll, I can’t even begin to describe what this was like.  This church was so beautiful. The doges palace and the symbol of Venice.

As we were walking around San Marcos Plaza, we noticed a bell tower.  Going in for further inspection, we realized we could go up in the tower and get an audio tour of Venice for $16 total.  Hm, good deal and we get an overview.  Let me tell ya’ll.  If you are a doing Venice on a budget and time constraint, this is the way to go.  We learned a lot about the city and got to see some amazing sites.
My beret…I forgot to get a hat and it was a bit nippy.  Thankfully, the vendors in the streets who were selling “souvenirs” made in China, gave me a great deal. How firefighers roll in Venice.
I wanted a cannoli because we were in Italy. We searched all day and finally found them.  The reason it was so hard:  cannolis are from Sicily.  Oh well.  I still got one in Italy. Eek!  the colors of the buildings.  The colors of the water!  I felt like we were walking through an amusement park set up to look like Italy.

Just walking around and Mark happened to look up and see this painting.

The Plaza in panorama.
For Tracy…maybe we should get a pedicure like this next time.  There were fish in the water.  They nibbled off your dead skin.  Ew.

So, yeah.  We did the touristry thing.  We splurged on a touristry gondola ride.  When would we ever go to Venice again?  We didn’t want to regret not doing it. It was totally worth it.  Our gondolier even sang.  It was a beautiful neat tour of the city.

I’ll have you know that we did not give in to the plethora of selfie stick vendors.  This masterpiece was made with our own arm extensions (which explains why Mark’s chin is cut off). Um, the most yummy splurge.  This is a Magnum Ice Cream Bar.  Sure, you can get itty bitty  Magnum ice cream in the states.  But this is a restaurant/bar that serves ice cream bars.  You pick your bar flavor.  Then you pick your dip flavor and toppings.  Next you pick your drizzle.  Then you die and go to heaven.  It was so yummy and fun!

Our funny for this part of the trip.  We stayed at a bed and breakfast.  At breakfast, the proprieter asked Mark if we wanted coffee Americano, cappucino, latte, etc. Mark didn’t feel adventurous (since he usually drinks black coffee).  So, he ordered Americano coffee.  The next guests come down and we hear the owner say, “Oh, coffee Americano, instant coffee.”  Ugh.  We came all the way to Venice to get cheap instant coffee.  Mark decided from then on he was getting lattes when we travel abroad (world travelers that we are).