7/24 -- Venice

Today we toured/climbed the clock tower in St. Mark’s Square.  Legend has it that after the clock was created, the Doge had the creator blinded so that he couldn't build anything else as beautiful.  The mechanism of the clock was huge and impressive, as was the fact that the weights that control the mechanism were hand-controlled until 1999.  The view from the top was not bad, either.


After we finished the clock tower, we took a vaporetta to the island of Murano, which is famous for glass making.  We watched a glass master at work (which was super, super neat, and demonstrated to me that I do not have the patience to be a glass master), and then toured the glass museum, then back to the main island of Venice for attempt #2 at St. Mark’s Basillica (with a stop at the hotel first to put on pants — although the entrance person today was less strict about the no shorts rule and many people got to enter with exposed knees so the boys were frustrated to be wearing jeans in the heat).  Wow.  I feel like “Wow” is the word that best describes how I felt about Venice in general, though, so maybe double wow?  The inside of the Basillica was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.  From the intricate gold designs on the walls and ceilings to the tile work on the walls and floors, it was incredible.

Next we went back to the hotel to change back into knee-exposing clothes, then to dinner on the water.

Some things we learned today:
  • We really felt like we could use a selfie stick, a device that usually makes me roll my eyes, but in order to get pictures of the whole family, we felt like we needed one. So we purchased one from a tourist stand on our walk to dinner.
  • The kids really enjoy the bidet, or “butt washers” as they call it.
  • I have been surprisingly good at unplugging from work; on a regular evening or weekend I have trouble not thinking about or actually doing work, but turning off email notifications on my phone seems to be key, as I honestly haven’t thought much about work at all.  But then on the vaporetta to Murano I had a “Did I set my out of office alert?” panic, and although I was like 95% sure the answer was yes, I needed to go into email to check.  Of course the alert was on.  But then it led to me reading a few before catching myself and getting  out of my inbox, and the whole thing briefly took me out of the moment.






The top of the clock tower, with views of St. Mark's Basilica and St. Mark's Square


Glass master at work




St. Mark's Basilica


First family photo with the selfie stick -- on the Rialto Bridge








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