Venice is unlike any other city in the world. Built entirely on small islands (mostly man-made), Venetians have to improvise many of the things we take for granted; for example, garbage pickup is accomplished using small handcarts to pick up plastic bags left near doorsteps, then dumped onto a specially-designed barge. And you definitely would not want to be the UPS delivery man in Venice; aside from the obvious obstacles, the addressing scheme is chaotic. But there is no traffic; you must park your car in a huge parking garage on the edge of town, then use the public transportation: water taxis or ferries.

The jewel of Venice is the Piazza del San Marcos, St. Mark's Plaza. We spent much of today marveling at St. Mark's Basilica. While St. Peter's Basilica in Rome is notable for its scale and opulence, St. Mark's is notable for its unique location and its quantity of gold. The entire interior of the church (and some of the exterior) is tiled with millions of tiny mosaic tiles, most of them gold. Mark the Evangelist is enshrined here, in a crypt at the center of the church. It's interesting that while Israel is generally considered the Holy Land, Italy and Greece have many of the landmarks that form the historical foundations of the early Christian Church.

We have mastered nearly every form of public transportation on this trip. In Venice, we navigated easily through the city using the water ferries, which run on routes and schedules just like buses. Sandy managed to figure out how to take a ferry to just about every church in town, and they were all amazingly beautiful.

We spent a great deal of time window-shopping for Murano glass. This one-of-a-kind glass is made across the water from Venice, in nearby Murano. We fell in love with its many colors and unique designs.

Today is Sandy's birthday. We won't say which one, but in Roman numerals, it's L. We celebrated with pizza. You can "fagettabout" Chicago-style or New York-style pizza. Our favorite is Venetian-style pizza. Once we discovered this delicacy "al funghi" (with mushrooms), we couldn't eat anything else. There's just enough time for one more slice, so we'll sign off for today.