I guess we can't swim in this water?

Sooooo today was the day to tour Venice, cool city I must admit. After arriving late last night, we were able to explore briefly in the vicinity of our hotel and it is definitely a tourist heavy attraction. This morning we had the hotel breakfast, took in the city from the rooftop terrace then laced up to set out for the major sights. I can't really explain in words how cool this place is to walk around, it is extremely easy to get lost around here and our tour guide, Rick Steves, suggested we do just that. First we navigated our way to the Rialto Bridge, probably the most famous bridge from Venice and it was packed at 9am. Not exactly what I thought it would be, lots of graffiti and souvenir shops actually on the bridge but it was a great way to take up space on the memory card and a nice photo op. Next we followed the herd of wandering tourists to the famous St Mark's Square, the patron Saint of Venice after his remains and relics found their way here. The square is massive, just larger than life and there were people everywhere! It was easy to get lost there and it was still in the morning and the real crowds had not arrived yet. We snapped a ton of photos which hopefully will be up soon and then climbed to the top of the tower to get a real birds eye view of the city from 300ft up and happened to be up there when the church bells struck on the hour, they were literally right above our heads, loud as could be! Afterward, we just strolled through the streets, soaking up all that this place has to offer, crossing a different canal every other minute, watching the gondolas go by, scoping out menus for dinner, we took a gondola to cross the Grand Canal, saw buildings that are older than the country we live in and the remnants of primitive water wells that have survived from 400 years, like I said awesome stuff. The heat was pretty bad, so we relaxed for a while at the hotel in the lounge or watching shows in Italian and pretending like we know what they are saying. Dinner was at this random restaurant where we could eat on the sidewalk, food was good, my lasagna is better and then we watched the World Cup final. That was about it for the day, tomorrow we have a short train ride to Florence, hopefully the trains are on time and we can have an easier traveling day. I'll put the pics from today up shortly. Ciao, bueno notte.