A few days in Venice

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So... this is me belatedly catching up the final days of the trip, for the sake of completeness.

From Slovenia we caught the worst train ever (meant to leave at 2.20am, arrived an HOUR late) to Venice.

Venice was...
crowded with obnoxious tourists
apparently deserted by actual residents (ie, felt more like a theme park than an actual living breathing city)
quite rude
un-freakin-believably expensive
almost completely lacking in gluten-free food
very very very watery...

...and actually relaxing and beautiful and even a little magical when seen from a Gondola.

That's right folks, my beautiful boyfriend shouted me to a gondola ride (which I was obviously too tight to shell out for!). I know it's a bit of a cliche, but it was also wonderful, the best way to see Venice, and my absolute highlight. In fact, without it, this entry could have been entitled "I hate Venice". There was so much of the city that was fascinating that you couldn't see any other way.

We didn't go into St Mark's (we went to the square, but huge queues of obnoxious tourists were a bit too much to deal with after our overnight train adventure.) We did hop around on ferries for a day, including going out to Murano, which was much nicer than the city, if a little overwhelmed by glass souvenir shops.

Anyhow, photos from Venice will be here shortly - don't have them with me at the moment.

Then it was off to Geneva, back to work for me and nearly home.

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