Now for the mundane (or perhaps interesting) update on today's adventures...

Our hotel, the Hotel Antiche Figure.  It's very close to Piazzale Roma, which is the main bus/shuttle stop of Venice, and across the Grand Canal from Stazione FF.SS di S. Lucia, the Venice train station.

To give you an idea of how high the water was outside our hotel this morning, here's my standing in the remnants of high tide...thank goodness the water was dying down at 10 AM!

Per our hotel concierge's suggestion, we opted to jump on a free water taxi that would take us to Murano, a small island that's part of Venice's territory.  The free water taxi was provided by a glass making factory, B.F. Signoretti, and I wouldn't recommend partaking in such an adventure unless you're okay with spending two hours staring at one glass sculpture after another.  It was interesting for the first 30 minutes, but it became rather tedious after that.  However, the glass making process was interesting....

After leaving Murano, we were dropped off by water taxi on Fondamente Nuove.  Our aim was to get to Piazza San Marco, but we weren't quite sure how long of a walk it'd end up being.  My 83 year old grandfather held up amazingly.  Along our trek we had a typical Italian lunch consisting of pizza & pasta, and we discovered how many Chinese immigrants Venice has.  Both of the servers at the cafe we ate lunch at were from China, as well as the clerks at the three shops we stopped in along our way to St. Mark's Plaza.  My grandfather, always the curious one, proceeded to stop each one and ask them what provinces they were from...o_O

On the way to St. Mark's Plaza, we passed by about a hundred shops.  I discovered that Italy's into the animal hats that Tim, Lesley, & I adore -- look!  A zebra, a monkey...and even an unicorn!

Random sights along the way...

We finally made it to St. Mark's Plaza after an almost 2 hour walk.  What I experienced in St. Mark's Plaza was well work the trek though...I got to see a pigeon land on my dad's arm without much warning...and another one take refuge on my grandfather's head!

St. Mark's Plaza & St. Mark's Basilica were fun, but we were so exhausted after visiting St. Mark's Plaza that we came back to the hotel via water bus shortly after....to nap.

...but not before being uber touristy!

It's now 3 something AM here...o_O

 

Hoping that photographs will help me better explain the day...

This morning Venice suffered high tide.  The streets were literally flooded with water, and we saw some pretty funny alternatives to rain boots being worn.  As you can see from the pictures, one photographer clearly wasn't about to let a little flooding prevent him from capturing his shots -- so he set his tripod up right in the water.  Another image I've uploaded is of a woman with makeshift water gear -- big black trash bags!

After starting our day off with a hearty breakfast, my family and I took a boat trip to Murano Island to see how Venetian glass is made.  The boat ride out there took about 15 minutes, and we spent about an hour and a half at the factory and its showrooms.  I learned from one of the staff members at the factory that the ovens are about 1200F!

Post-visit to Murano, a water taxi came to ferry us to the main conglomerate of islands.  We then started our long walk to Piazza San Marco.  I'm extremely impressed that my Grandpa was able to handle all of that walking, because even I was winded by the time we reached the plaza!

[pictures of this later...I need to take a nap o_O]

^My dad took this picture of me -- found it to be extremely hilarious since it's quite a depiction of quintessential me...