This will just be an odds and ends closer look at life in Venice, as we witnessed it. Venice is a big city and in most ways, they have it all.

We did plenty of shopping and especially window shopping in Venice. Well, at least one of us did. One type of store that we saw frequently was a mask store. The wearing of masks in Venice evidently goes back as far as the 12th century. It seems to have been connected to Carnival. It wasn't Carnival when we were in Venice, but mask stores were there in big numbers. We also saw many adds for people to make their own mask.

We might have left Switzerland and the Alps but Venice still had chocolate shops. And yes, we stopped at them all. I liked the display in the window of the chocolate shop below. The chocolate is dripping down through three gondolas and through the Rialto Bridge. Nice.

As I had seen football (soccer to us) played in the Alps, which didn't seem ideal, I wondered about Venetian kids. No problems!

As I said, Venice has it all, including street musicians. I liked this woman playing the wine goblets. She was quite good.

We didn't spend much time in our hotel room, but when we did, we still had a nice view of the Grand Canal and all its traffic.

On a walking tour with our Venetian guide, we passed this business. It is a gondola making business. They make gondolas. According to our guide, they were the first gondola makers in Venice and today, they are the only gondola making business in Venice. The founders were Swiss which our guide said accounts for the shape and decorations of the gondolas.