Venice, Italy

WE decided to make one more trip before Abby's school begins and Joe has to actually go to an office. We went to Venice!!!! We left on Tuesday Aug. 31 in the afternoon and hit the weather just right. It was 75 sunny and not humid in Venice. We took Easy Jet to Marco Polo airport and followed the signs to the water bus. It's about a 5 minute walk. The water is beautiful and sparkling as you arrive at the boat platforms. The boats have bus numbers on them and are fitted with seats 3 across with an aisle in the middle. This is how everyone gets around in Venice as there are no vehicles on the island of venice. We got off the boat in San Marco to the site of dozens of kiosks of hats, scarves, masks, magnets the usual stuff. Thanks to Joe we found our way to the hotel scandanavia. A nice and clean hotel but european showers are strange at best. No shower curtain or door so you have to sit in the tub as you wash and rinse with a hand held shower head. Not easy for us old folks. We put the luggage away and walked which is the best way to get around. The streets are really narrow except for the squares or piazzas. Tons of shops selling clothes, leather, wine, glass made on the island of murano. So we had dinner and walked until 10 pm when I was ready to drop. We crashed at the hotel until the next morning.

On Wednesday we visited the island of Murano to see glass making and of course to help their economy. Murano has amazing shopping. First we went to several glass making factories and their shops. Abby of course did well purchasing an elephant made of murano glass with silver inlaid inside the elephant. Also she got a kiddish cup of murano glass. All real pieces of art. Later in the day she also got a winter coat at a local boutique. All the clothing stores were really amazing!!!!!

Later in the afternoon we went to the Jewish Ghetto and took a tour. There are 5 synagogues in venice currently: Ashkenazy, Sephardim, French, Turk and Greece, and Spanish. There are only 400 jews living in venice so they use one synagogue at a time attending services in certain synagogues, Winter at the Turk and greece synagogue and summer to the Spanish synagogue. All the synagogues are orthodox.
The Ashkenazy and Sephardim synagogues are the oldest and are part of the jewish museum. they are only used for special occasions such as a bar mitzvah, wedding, selihot.

In the evening we walked some more with abby and I going back to the hotel around 10 pm and Joe continuing to walk.

Thursday we toured the Acadamia museum of venetian paintings all with a religious theme. They were so impressive in technique and scale. Then after a break, we toured St. Marks Cathedral at the San Marco Piazza. St marks has amazing mosaics dating back to the renaissance both inside and outside the church.

Then we got ready to return to the airport for our flight back to Paris. It is a beautiful and enchanting city. None of the pictures do it justice but i hope you enjoy them just the same. We were really lucky with the weather!!!!!

Oh here's one more antidote - as we walked around we saw motor boats along the smaller canals by homes instead of cars. Also on the canal there are boats for police, ambulance, cargo boats bringing supplies into the city.

A Happy new year to all our jewish family and friends. Hugs to you all.

Sydelle