Yes, it is a truly great city. We spent yesterday afternoon and evening traversing the labrynth that is Venice - amazing, so very old, such majestic buildings and stylish people. Friendly too, and not nearly as expensive as everyone said it would be. Despite being told otherwise, we are sure this is the perfect time to come here. Warm weather, but not hot. Not at all crowded but still jolly, and not such tourist-fatigue. And happily almost everyone we heard in Venice was speaking Italian - yay! Feel like we are really here.
We bought 24 hour vaporetto (water buses) passes for $15 Euro each adult and headed up the grand canal to Ca' D'oro. We went to the Ca' D'Oro Franchetti museum - oartly, it must be said, to find a loo for Belly (the first of 6 loo stops for her in the time we were there - ye gads!) but it was amazing - only 2 Euro 50 entry and some amazing paintings and sculptures, some from byzantine times! Then we wandered around the place and soaked up the atmosphere, gelati and pizza to go. Very funny to look in a pet shop window (Venice-style pets - guinea pigs, bunnies and birds!) to see premium tins of pet food for the little tiny Venice dogs made of New Zealand and Australian chicken and lamb - proudly flagged on the label!
We went into the Basilica SS Giovanni e Paolo which was also amazing. peaceful and majestic. We eventually found Piazza San Marco and soaked it up for a few touristy minutes and got a couple of photos - it is overwhelmingly beautiful to see the huge ornate buildings and just the scale of the Piazza itself. Stunning.
We eventually worked our way back over many little bridges and eventually Vaporetto Numero Uno to the station and had a funny self service fast-food italian style meal (see www.brek.com) before hopping on the train back to Quarto d'Altino and the Holiday Inn we are enjoying - ve posh place, last of the luxury stays methinks. (Will check out some Agritourism options while on the road next week.)Henry chirpy all the way back despite it being v late, Bella fast asleep. A great day.
Have just had an amazing breakfast - included in the Wotif booking I made online the night before we arrived. At the Hotel Rex in Bibione it was good - cereal, yoghurt, rolls, salami, ham and cheese. But here it is full hot breakfast too! Ye gads. Bella and I stayed up here as she was a bit off-colour this morning (seems fine now). They broght back a huge tray of scrambled eggs, lashings of bacon, sausage, brioche, toast, cereal - yikes. A feast. We can't eat this way every day, that's for sure...but we all had a good taste of everything, for politeness' sake of course.
We have one more day/night here before picking up a car tomorrow (got an amazing rate online) and heading off to discover more of the bella Italia for a week, then flying Verona - Barcelona next Saturday. We were for a fee able to change our Venice-Paris Ryan Air flights - just not ready for Paris quite yet. We hope to see Conrad's uncle John in Murcia, Spain while he attends a conference there. Then we will head back along the Meditteranean to the South of France and then who knows...
Oh yes - go the All Blacks and all that...we may even watch it if we can find somewhere it is on today!
: )
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