Exploring Burano & Venice!

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We awoke after a squeaky night on the world's noisiest sofa bed. We strolled downstairs for our breakfast at the Aqua Palace, which consisted of ham and cheese croissants to which Rach exclaimed "mine tastes like jam" (it wasn't until the next morning we realised the little ones were filled with apricot jam). We also discovered ordering a latte in Italy involves getting a long black and a big jug of milk, and was amused by watching Rach attempt to scoop coffee out of her cup spoonful by spoonful until there was sufficient room to put the milk.

We strolled out into the heat to start our days adventures. We made a beeline for Saint Marco square (and didn't get lost) and marvelled at the sight of the tower and buildings surrounding (however was quite disappointed to see a big bloody billboard advertising some stupid clothing brand covering one side of the square).

We exited the square and wondered along the wharf area looking for our boat to take us to Berano, a quaint little colourful fishing village that Glenda was recommended on seeing. We found our boat and choofed off into the bay, leaving the Venice backdrop in our wake. We stood Titanic style at the front of the boat and Rach quoted "Don't ever let me go Jack"...think she got the scenes muddled up?

We arrived at Berano and ventured through the dusty lane ways, stopping to look in the little shops selling lace...lots and lots of lace, think Berano must be known for it. We came across the centre of the town, split down the middle by a little canal and were amazed at the brightly coloured houses that lined both sides of the canal. We stopped once again to fill up our water bottles a water fountain and posed for a few photos against the picturesque backdrop. We wondered on through, taking some very artistic colourful photos and found Berano’s version of the leaning tower of Pisa. We stopped for lunch, and thought we’d try something different and order pizza. Haven gotten our fill, we strolled the stores before making our way back to the wharf and back to Venice.

Back on dry land, we checked our watches...yep, Gelato o’clock. It was a pretty rapid gelato as the thing was melting quicker than I could get mine down. We made our way back to Saint Marco square and made a beeline for Aqua Palace (and didn’t get lost) to drop Keith off for a rest. The rest of us strolled the streets, looking at the markets where Kate found a few little hairclips as a present for Charlotte. We stopped to take in the view from Rialto Bridge and looked up the Grand Canal, such an amazing sight with water taxis running up and down the canal, and little gondola boats slowly going about their business. We stopped and Rach and I looked at some canvas paintings hoping to find one that we both liked to hang up on our wall at home. Having gone through ALL the paintings we’d sorted them into ‘yes’ and ‘no’ piles however the final decision was a difficult one. We ended up buying one that showed a gondola cruising down a canal with a lovely little bridge in the background. One half of Team Stewart wasn’t particularly impressed with the purchase, “there just wasn’t enough colour”...hope she likes it once we get it home.

Haven walked all around the little lane ways, it was time to go back to the hotel and get ready for dinner. We decided on a little restaurant right on the Grand Canal. We all ordered our mains (beef ragu was a popular option) however I’d decided on spaghetti marinara, not a good choice. Was the most bland and sparsely seafood marinara I’ve ever had and the most disappointing thing about Venice. Oh well, disappointment over, it was hard not to be impressed with the location of dinner, our little table right on the banks of the grand canal just as the sun was going down. Having devoured a giant dessert between all of us, we decided that when in Venice, one must travel by gondola. We decided on one where the driver was just so enthusiastic about his boats, “this is not just a boat ride, but a museum on the water”, righto buddy, let’s show us what you’ve got. The gondola ride was very cool, although the driver was very difficult to understand, I got the general gist of what he was getting at, mentioned Marco Polo a few times and guided us gently through the narrow canals. The only disappointing thing was it would’ve been better to do this during the day time as it was quite dark floating through the canals and a lot of the buildings he was pointing out we couldn’t see that well. And our photos were quite hard in the dark. That aside, it was awesome.



And that’s our day in Venice, we were dropped back at Rialto Bridge and made our way effortlessly through the twisting streets back to our hotel. Sleep time and off to Florence via water taxi and train tomorrow!

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