Gondola Ride<br /><div style="text-align:center;margin:0 auto 10px;"><a href="http://bachiles.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/p1050045.jpg"><img src="http://bachiles.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/p1050045.jpg?w=300" alt="" border="0" /></a> </div>                                                                                       A bit of home on a gondola we rode by<br /><div style="text-align:center;margin:0 auto 10px;"><a href="http://bachiles.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/p1050046.jpg"><img src="http://bachiles.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/p1050046.jpg?w=300" alt="" border="0" /></a> </div>                                                                        This guy had his doggie along on his ride!!!<br /><div style="text-align:center;margin:0 auto 10px;"><a href="http://bachiles.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/p1050051.jpg"><img src="http://bachiles.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/p1050051.jpg?w=300" alt="" border="0" /></a> </div>                                                                                                                                     A great place for tea and cappuccino.<br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:arial;"> We had a lovely day today!!  We got a boat to take us over to Murano where all the glass places are.  They had told us last night to just come down around 9 and they would have a private boat for us---so we did.  And they boat had just left-----so they yelled at the guy to come back and he did and we had a great ride over with a couple from Toronto.  It was nice to have some real conversations!!! They were really sweet and we kind of ended up hanging together just because we were met by the guy at the glass factory and he showed us all around.  It was beautiful and we got to see a couple of the artists working.  There are 240 artists there and their work is simply amazing. The guy was trying hard to make a sale and the one thing I really liked was a jellyfish suspended in a hunk of glass....to the tune of 22,000 Euros-----which converts to about $29,790 US.  Needless to say that was not purchased!   I did buy a beautiful necklace and earrings for considerably less!!!  <br /><br />We were not sure how we were actually going to get back and there were a lot of places to explore there but the lady at the store/factory said they would arrange the boat for us so we opted to just go ahead and head to San Marco.  We needed to exchange some more money (funny how fast it spends here....) and get some souvenirs so Mike and Erin decided to go back with us too.  We had such a nice ride with them---they are headed home tomorrow but have been in Italy for 14 days so I think they are ready to get back.   Chris and I had lunch at a tearoom on the Piazza San Marco (great tea) and did a little souvenir shopping before finally finding the right place to be to catch the boat back to the hotel. We had never gotten dropped off there and the signs weren't real great so we missed the one we wanted and had to wait 50 minutes but no biggie. The trip in Venice ends tomorrow--we will catch a boat back to the parking garage--get the car and head to Lake Como for one night which should be great.   Chris just got an email saying that they have changed the hotel where we are staying in Switzerland but it is right next door so we will drop our luggage off, take the car back to Geneva airport and grab a train and taxi back to the hotel. Should be interesting but I am sure we can do it and then we will be in one place--no driving while Chris does his Leadership Course.   Fun times!<br /><br />Not sure when I will be blogging again but will do it as soon as possible!<br /></span></span><div style="clear:both;text-align:center;"><a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" alt="Posted by Picasa" align="middle" border="0" /></a></div>