More pictures from my trip to Venice! Most of these were taken on our second day. How beautiful is this city?
Venice is divided into six sestièri: San Marco, San Polo, Cannaregio, Castello, Dorsoduro and Santa Croce.
Cats are very important to the Venetians, as they symbolize luck and good fortune, and have done so since the Black Death.
I loved this old woman! Doesn't she look like a stereotypical Italian nonna?
Most of the street signs were written in Venetian rather than Italian; streets are called calle instead of the Italian via. It's from the Venetian language English now has words like arsenal, casino, ghetto, marzipan, quarantine and scampi.
The oldest church in Venice, dating back to 1442. The monastery next to it dates back to the 13th century.
We visited the Jewish Ghetto in Cannaregio. If you know your Shakespeare, you've probably heard about the ghetto from The Merchant of Venice.
The Ghetto was created in the early 1500s, and was the first Jewish ghetto in Europe. Today it's still a center for Venice's Jews, with kosher bakeries and restaurants and two working synagogues, as well as a museum.
The Jewish Ghetto is divided into two: the Ghetto Nuovo and the Ghetto Vecchio, ie. the new and the old parts. Roughly 300 Jews live there today.
Gelato!
St. Mark's Basilica. St. Mark is the patron saint of Venice.
The Basilica is incredibly beautiful and intensely bronze colored. Could of spent an entire day there.
Sunday dinner in San Polo: fresh pasta with clams for me, spaghetti bolognese for Gavin, shellfish soup, focaccia and grilled fish.
