Day 18

Well, we hit the half way mark of our journey. We've done and seen so much, and yet there's so much more still to come. This morning was a super early, rush out the door, type of morning. We had to get to Doge's Palace at St. Mark's square by 9 am. Not an easy task when you have to navigate the maze of Venice.

We were taking the 'secret tour' today. Basically, it was the tour of the hidden building inside the palace building. It was very interesting as we learned a lot about the Venetian political system of the past. We were getting a tour of the back rooms that were out of view from the public. These were rooms such as the Grand Chancellor's office, the

inquisition room, and some jail cells. All within the palace walls!

We were told an true story of Casanova, the only person to escape from the prison. We also got to see some of the secret doors and how they opened up into the regular palace rooms. It was cool to see how they camouflaged these doors to make it look like the regular facade. After the tour we wandered through the rest of the palace. Once again more impressively decorated rooms. The arsenal room was neat as it had many different weapons used throughout the years, from swords to pistols to cannons.

After Doge's palace, Jen and Abby went up the bell tower while Josiah and I failed to find a geocache. We then headed for lunch at a highly rated pizza place. It was a thick pizza with some of the best crust I've ever had. Of course, we had our daily gelato from one of the highly

rated gelato places in Venice.

We were home nice and early today. It was good to get away from the crowds. It was not as busy yesterday, but maybe we were in a more touristy spot. After a rest, Jen and I went around the corner for a date night at a local restaurant.