.........A typical snack bar, (though smaller) like the one where ONE small 20 oz. bottle of water and ONE equally small bottle of soda cost us $12 ( ! ). We should have asked the price before we ordered, I guess! Everything in Venice costs so much mainly because of the familiar principles of "supply and demand". Venice is a relatively small city, but extremely RICH in beauty, character, charm, and uniqueness, thus attracts millions of tourists each year. And the merchants KNOW that only the tourists who can afford to come here will come, and will be willing to pay just about any price. Plus all goods must be shipped BY BOAT to Venice, which is also a more costly process, and slower too!

It's also interesting to note that in the big cities of Italy, just as in the U.S., there are huge numbers of business establishments owned or run by foreigners, and who hire immigrants to cut costs on labor, much more now than decades ago. We definitely noticed a huge increase in the immigrant presence now. More and more of them (many who are illegal) are selling bootleg or black market goods, too. Like the fellows we saw the police chasing in Rome, who had gathered up their pile of designer rip-off purses and split the scene in a hurry when the police arrived ! Generally these opportunists don't have booths or stands. They sell everything on blankets on the pavement. A LOT has changed in the 35 years since I lived here, NOT just the prices!

.....We passed MANY displays like the photo above of oil and water color paintings, and wanted to buy one, but they were quite high in price too, EVEN by some of the "less talented" artists. But those masks in this photo sure are interesting, and they even had some with cat faces!! The display window on the left has all types of animal masks, cats, zebras, giraffes, pigs, among many others in the store (which surprised me a little.)



.....Sonia is standing near the famous "BRIDGE OF SIGHS", so named because in the past, prisoners walked across it from the Courthouse to the prison, to serve their sentence. They sighed as they looked at Venice, for maybe the last time, through one of 3 windows in the bridge, as they were about to lose their freedom. That would make anyone sigh, that's for sure!








.....And LOOK AT THESE MASKS!! They make 'em in all types, colors and sizes, and these are beautiful too. Well NOT those long-beaked vulture looking faces.....what the heck are those?? It WAS almost Halloween, but I think that's only an American tradition. I
know Italians didn't celebrate it in the 1970's when I lived in Italy. But a few times we saw a Halloween display in the shops in Rome & our friend told us that SOME Italians do celebrate it in recent years.