Venice: City of bridges, alleys and canals (and sometimes slighly smelly water)

Ah Venice. The city of bridges, alleys and canals (and sometimes slightly smelly water).
Here's a gondola ride (which we never took, seeing that they were pretty exhorbitant in cost). We actually saw somebody getting a ride with a singer and accordian player.
The bridge behind Aubrey is the Bridge of Sighs, where prisoners would get their last glimpse of freedom (and sigh) before arriving in the prison the the right side.
This is the Tre Arche Bridge right outside our hotel (named Tre Arche Hotel). We stayed on the Carneggio Canal, on the Jewish Ghetto side. Apparently Venice was one of the first cities to limit Jews to a certain place in their city. They would lock up the bridges at night and only allow the Jewish doctors to get out when they were needed (Sounds like what youth ministry is sometimes...locked up until it's needed).
That's the Rialto Bridge behind me. They've got shops and stuff on the bridge. it's one of three that span the Grand Canal.

Everything is by boat here. We even saw a UPS boat. It had the UPS symbol on the rutter.

One of the saddest parts of our trip was seeing a funeral procession. They take the casket on a boat to the cemetery, but the family doesn't get to go with the boat. A woman had just lost someone and was weeping so loudly that it echoed through the square and down the alleys and canals.

In Venice there were signs directing us to Rialto and San Marco Square. often just pointing one direction, when eventually we would find another sign directing us where we wanted to go. But sometimes if we didn't see a sign for a while we would start to worry, but then we would see another sign. And it would direct us where to go. I think this is sometimes how it is with our walk with our Maker. We sometimes are directed to do something and go in that direction...but there is a period in time when we don't know exactly how we going to get where we need to.

These signs were everywhere in Venice. So that wherever you were, you would eventually find a sign directing you to the main sights.