In the square there a hundreds, nay, thousands of pigeons.
This is, I believe, caused by the tourists feeding them rather excessively
as we did on the day in question. It was fun, though. While
we were there we also went up to the top of the bell tower and took in
the view of the city from there. It’s really not that big of a city,
though it’s rich in history.
After leaving the square we did a little shopping on our way to our
gondola ride. No visit to Venice would be complete without a gondola
ride and I found it quite helpful in seeing the sights from a nice setting
and knowing what they are (the gondola dude explained it all to us as we
floated along the canals). The ride cost about $90.00 for the deluxe
version (35 minutes or so), which we split among the 4 of us. Our
guide was clearly a master at maneuvering the craft. The only time
we ever hit anything was when another guy (obviously not so good) tried
to pass us in a very narrow canal. I was amazed at how closely our
‘pilot’ could get to the edges and corners without actually touching.
