Venice still magical - Day 2

I fel like I've died and gone to heaven! Venice is so magical and unbelievable. It is exactly like in the movies. Venice was built of mud flats. The buildings sit on wooden poles. It seens one of the churches sits on 12,000 tree trunks. It is amazing to see that the buildings end in a canal. All the streets are criscrossed by canals. Last year, there were 22 miliion tourists to Venice. The symbol of Venice is the winged lion. Everywhere you see statues of the winged lion.

Today we went to a glass blowing factory called Vecchia Murano. The guy doing the demo literally took 5 minutes to create a horse from a blob of glass. Beautiful beautiful works of coloured glass. The glass comes from one of the local islands called Murano. In the centre of the square was St Marks Cathedral. Angela and I queued for 20 minutes to go inside the cathedral. Even though the signs said no photos, everyone was taking them so we did. Magnificent marble columns and mosaic paintings on the domed ceilings and walls. You have to see the photos to believe it. Next to the cathedral is the Ducal Palace, that dates back to the time of Constantinople. The prison is connected to the Palace by the Bridge of Sighs. It seems that after prisoners were tried in the Palace, they would have to walk across the bridge to prison and probably to their death. Venice is a city of masks. Every year in February, there is a carnival of masks. The masks look like the one that Uncle Hee and Aunty Siow Fong bought Emily for Christmas. Some are even more elaborate. Wait till you see the photos.

For lunch, we took a boat out to an island called Burano. It is a pretty island. All the houses are painted in different colours. We had a huge seafood lunch. The island is also known for its lace. I bought a pretty lace scarf. I was so tempted to buy a lace top but decided against it in the end. Now I wish I bought it! Handmade lace - absolutely beautiful.

Tomorrow we have a lot of driving ahead of us. From Venice, we are driving south past Florence to Rome. We have 2 nights in Rome. We will be visiting the Coloseum and Vatican city. No dinners included - I think everything is expensive in Rome.

Have you guys got any of the postcards I've been sending? It is so hard to find stamps around. You'll probably get them all at once. I hope they don't get lost.

Ha, I've just worked out how to upload photos. My room mate is Karen and she lives in the Gold Coast. She was sleeping last night so I could not work on the computer for long.

I'll try and copy the photos from the camera and upload the photos from Rome tomorrow. Till then, Ciao, good night and love you all.

Love
Mummy & Poi Keng