----- Venice, Italy ---------------

We originally had no plans to visit the Vatican. Since we had some extra time we decided to take the morning and see this amazing place. To us visiting the Vatican was out of curiosity for the architecture and history. The front courtyard of the Vatican is immensely grand. Statues align the top of the columns of the curving surrounds and fountains decorate the front entrance. It was funny to listen in on a tour of a lady explaining the significance of the front stairs leading up into St Peter's Basilica. The stairs were in 3 groups of 7 steps each, but one large step was at the bottom. She explained that the one large step was the rock or Peter. The 3 groups represented the Trinity and what was funny was the explanation of the 7 stairs. She just said 7 is a magic number. What kind of symbolism is this?! Little did she know that 7 in the Bible represents heavenly completeness. I didn't want to burst in and ruin her tour so I kept my thoughts to myself although it was hard to do so.

As we entered St Peters we were in awe over the grandness and detail of this church. This was the most decorated church I have ever seen. We noticed several areas of confession booths and we even passed the priest daycare center for alter boys. Just joking.

We headed to the Vatican museum and decided that a tour would be beneficial as there was much history here. We didn't join a tour at first since the English was pretty bad on these tour guides. As we winded our way through the museum we found a tour guide who was a very knowledgeable American. We tagged along with them and could not believe how much information he knew. He explained so many of the statues, paintings and other amazing works. There was so much here that we had seen. It would take several pages to write it all out. Touring the Vatican was well worth it.

One of Venice's main canals	Me, Gabe, Lisa and Alessia	Canal from Rialto bridge
Looking to Venice from the ferry	Late afternoon in Venice	Gabe in front of St. Marks Cathedral
Looking to the Grand Canal	Balancing pillars in St. Mark's Square	McD's 6,40 Euro meals ($8.30) OUCH
Very crowded St. Mark's Square	St. Mark's Cathedral	Looking back towards St. Marks
Our last shot w/ Alessia before she left	Famous pillars lining St. Mark's Square	Joel on Murano island in Venice
Beautiful Murano glass vases	Gorgeous sunset from Murano
Gondola waiting in a narrow canal	Cool clock tower as we entered Venice	Joel waving us down
Poking our heads out for a pic	Artwork details the front of St. Marks	Actually a wide street in Venice