Venice III: Walking around

This was a weird chain. It looked like metal, but it was floating.




These poles made it impossible to take a picture out across the water, so... I just gave in and took a picture of the poles. That is Santa Maria della Salute in the background.


Ponte dell'Accademia:


And a view down the Grand Canal from on top of it:


Lots of canals:







And big buildings:


Greenery was surprisingly rare:


This statue, Boy With Frog, probably should have just been called Boy With Penis, for all that people took pictures of.


Art that I thought was interesting:


Blown glass IP infringement:


Hey, a Best Western!


There were lots and lots of dogs in Venice. This was the biggest one we saw, by a pretty large margin:

Venice II: St Mark's

Pictures from Piazza San Marco and Saint Mark's Basilica.

Letting pigeons climb all over you is a popular tourist activity. Is this something that Venetians encourage so that they can laugh at stupid tourists?


The campanile. Normally, you can take an elevator up to the top, but it was closed for repairs.


The gate of the campanile:


There were 3 huge flag poles (woops, Wikipedia tells me that these are ships' masts):


I didn't get many good exterior shots of St. Mark's because a lot of it was covered in scaffolding.



The clocktower:



The Procuratie Vecchie bounds the piazza on the north. Usually, this space is jammed with people. While we were there, it was mostly jammed with empty chairs.



Some shots from inside St. Mark's Basilica:





The mosaics:




The Greek Horses:


The presbytery screen:


The mosaic floor:

Venice I: The "waterfront"

These images are from the waterfront (or whatever you want to call it) outside our hotel. It was a bit east of St. Mark's Basilica, so it looked out over the lagoon instead of a canal.

Our hotel. The two windows on the second floor are my room.


I was surprised at how busy it was, although this nearly deserted compared to the crowds during the high season:


The Victor Emmanuel memorial:



The Bridge of Sighs, annoyingly surrounded by advert-covered-scaffolding:


There were gondolas tied up everywhere. I'm surprised that they leave them in the water all year, because they obviously don't get much use during the winter.


In case you fall in the canal (and manage to survive the cold, and the gross water):

Dogs at the Park

Took the dogs on a short hike on Monday, after the tech showed up and (finally!) got my DSL fixed.

Tucker wrestling with his invisible friend:



Gracie, wishing that she had an invisible friend:


Gracie marveling at the beauty of nature:


Mostly I got to marvel at the dogs' butts as they ran away down the trail:


Tucker made a new friend:


The dogs spent a lot of time with their heads buried in the snow:



And a lot of time running:

A quick note for Wal-Mart's worst cashier...

Do no bag things alphabetically. Boxes of screws and bananas do not go in the same bag. Chips and canned goods do not go in the same bag.