Born in a lagoon 1,500 years ago as a refuge from barbarians, Venice is Europe’s best preserved Middle-Ages city. It is laced together by 400 bridges and 2,000 alleys. ( There are NO cars.) In the Middle-Ages, the Venetians became Europe’s clever middlemen for East-West trade and created a trading and shipping empire. The seat of the Venetian government and home of its ruling doge, or duke, was the most powerful and wealthy half-acre in Europe for 400 years. The city, during that time, was the world’s richest! However, with the discovery of America and new trading routes, Venetian power ebbed. As it fell, her appetite for decadence grew and through the 17^th and 18^th centuries, Venice partied on the wealth it had accumulated through earlier times as a trading empire. All of it is evident as we visited the Doge’s Palace, saw St. Marco’s Square, wandered the canals, and floated down the Grand Canal. The Grand Canal is Venice’s “Main Street”. The most lavish palaces in Venice form a sort of chorus line along the entire canal, each with its own entrance from the water. – Paraphrased from Rick Steves’ Venice is truly a beautiful city! It was really hard to pick which pictures to show you since I think we filled an entire card with them. I’ll only bother you with two pages… Photography in the Doge’s Palace were forbidden, but I must add that we did get to see the largest oil painting in the world in there!