Can you just put me in the backpack...and carry me?!

Good evening friends!

Last night we ventured out to a spot that we saw on television. Before we left home we saw several shows on the Discovery Channel with our favorite hostess, Ms. Samantha Brown. During her travels to Venice she found a ristorante that we just had to try.

After our delightful hotel host, Diego, pointed us in the right direction, we began navigating the back alleyways of Venice. The city in the evening is so peaceful; try to imagine a city without cars, no noise, just peace. All of the day tourists had found their way home, so the city was ours. We made great time and found our little spot, Cantina Canaletto. This ristorante is famous for it's HUGE wine glasses (see picture). The wine glasses are bigger than our head; Matty took the first sip of wine and his face actually disappeared in the glass. They made the glass that big so the wine could breathe quickly and so that their patrons could enjoy their wine that much sooner. We think that it's just so that we can tell you that we only had one glass of wine with dinner (even though one glass is big enough for an entire bottle). Dinner was also fantastic, with homemade sauce and hand-rolled ziti.

This morning we woke up to the sound of birds chirping in the courtyard below our room. However, they woke up at 5:00 a.m. and we weren't quite ready to rise with them. Let me just take a sidebar. Matty made a cute joke about how the Italian songbirds sing their song with their wings (similar to how Italians use their hands when they speak). He thought it was hilarious...cricket, cricket...

When we did get out of bed we enjoyed a quick croissant on the way to St. Mark's Square to meet our group for a 2-hour walking tour (the one we missed yesterday). The tour-guide could not have been more perfect. She was Italian, but spoke English for the tour. She annunciated each word very carefully. We thought that her speech and her corny jokes would have been perfect for a skit on Saturday Night Live.

On our walking tour we saw St. Mark's Basilica. Each "painting" that we saw was actually a mosaic. A mosaic is made with thousands of tiny pieces of colored stone. Our guide told us that each "yellow" piece was actually gold. Inside the Basilica was absolultely breathtaking. We would not do it justice by trying to describe it, nor can we show you pictures, as cameras are not allowed inside. It was one of the most awe-inspiring sights we've had. From there our tour saw the outside of Doge's (Dough-jay's) Palace, Marco Polo's house, and several other cool sites.

Once our tour concluded it was time for lunch! We ended our tour near the Rialto Bridge and began our ascent up it's stairs (the picture above was taken from the top of the Bridge). We had lunch on the other side of the bridge in a garden shaded by beautiful hanging purple flowers. We each had our first Italian pizza. It came out un-sliced, which means that we had to use a knife and fork to eat it. For those of you who know Matty, he was in heaven. Finally, he can use the excuse that he eats his pizza like the Italians do.

From there we decided to find gelatto. On our way we were approached by the best gondolier/salesman in Venice. Danieli was our gondolier and told us that he had been in the business since he was 15. Much to Savannah's disappointment, he didn't sing; but the peaceful trip down the little canals was very relaxing. Now...it was on to find our gelatto! Let us say that gelatto is to-die-for. We plan to have it at least once a day, if not twice for the remainder of our trip. After all, we ARE the dessert couple, aren't we?!

The remainder of our afternoon was spent touring through Doge's Palace, crossing the Bridge of Sighs, visiting the Correr Museum, and finally with a trip to the top of the infamous bell tower. Doge's Palace was the highlight with a viewing of the largest oil painting in the world, which was 57 meters (about 160 feet) long.

By this point, the comfortable walking shoes that we brought were no longer comfortable. We headed back to Hotel Fontana for a quick sieste before dinner.

We are off to eat now. By the way, our local gelatto server is open until 22:30 tonight, which means we will be enjoying two servings today.

Caio (and thanks for the comments; we loved them!)