I LOVE THIS WOMAN!

We woke up our second day in Venice and decided to start the day with a jog through the city to the port.
Not as easy as we thought. We had to weave through people and around stands, and we couldn´t find the port. But we got to see the city wake up - it physically comes alive every morning.
Vendors pull out their carts and uncover their valuable items. Fruit stands fill up with vibrantly ripe fruit. And slowly, more and more people crowd into the street. When we left, there were people walking along here and there, but when we returned just over an hour later, intermixed masses of tourists and Italians crowded the streets.
It´s amazing.

We grab a quick lunch on our way out again, and just start wandering. Venice isn´t very big, and we had three days there, so we figured we might as well take a more leisurely approach to our touring. Reading different histories from our guide book as we went, we strolled by shops, stopping in now and again to take a closer look.

And eventually we stumbled across the Piazza San Marco.

I knew exactly where we were the minute we caught a glimpse. I had a poster of the piazza hanging in my dorm all last year, and I could not wait to get there. (Though, after my Versailles experience, I was a bit apprehensive about all of those pigeons. Hence the extra cleaning wipes).
And it was exactly as I had imagined...better in fact. Pigeons cover the ground everywhere. Saint Mark´s Basilica is absolutely amazing - the color and grandeur of the building forces you to stop and take a moment just to look. We admired the bell tower high in the sky, and watched people feed the pigeons.

¨This is the commercial,¨ I said to Leslie. ¨The diamond commercial where that guy stands in the middle of the plaza and yells at the top of his lungs, I LOVE THIS WOMAN!¨

I wanted to yell, ¨I LOVE THIS PLACE!¨

We walked with the crowds along the water, past the government building, Doge´s Palace, and the famous Bridge of Sighs (Ponte dei Sospiri) where prisoners were marched to jail from the interrogation rooms in Doge´s Palace.

We sat down by the water, docked gondolas swaying in front of us, and wrote. We had made it to the end of our trip, and I could not believe it.

Cafè lattes and fruit and postcard writing. It was great.

Our next goal: a gondola ride.