Venice 2012

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Well, coming to our end of our trip, and our time in Italy, it’s time to backtrack and to recoup the week that was (do I sound a bit like the BBC?)

<strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Venice

We arrived in Venice on an overcast day. The first thing I quickly realised about Venice is the lack of street names which makes it VERY hard to find one’s hotel. The second the MASS of tourists which makes it very hard to GET to your hotel, and thirdly the number of bridges over the canal which makes it very hard….in general! Ok, so we walked around and around (tip to those planning to go to Venice: If you work out the area you are staying in e.g. Castello, San Marco etc., the house numbers just go around in a linear pattern). So we found out B&B (well B as it should have been called as breakfast wasn’t served). Not the apex, but it was a clean place to sleep. We didn’t do much as we had a bit of wine at lunch and slept until dinner, where we wandered round until we had something to eat. The next day we were due to go to our original hotel, apartments in San Marco. Now, I had arranged to meet the apartment representative at a certain time and place, but with lack of internet access that was pushed back. Anyhow, after a LOOONG walk (Venice is a carless city, so walking is a must unless you want to spend a motzah on the water taxi with baggage) in the rain, and a wait, we met without apartment rep and were guided to a really nice self-contained apartment near San Marco square. Earlier that day we went to San Marco square and the tide must have been up cos the place was half flooding and all these scaffolding with make-shift walkways were put in place. And the line to the Basilica was HUUGE.

The next day (our last day) in Venice we wandered around in amongst the throngs of tourists. As it was a Sunday and a celebration was underway, the church was closed so we went up the tower. Awesome views and very lovely until the bells stared ringing NON-STOP for 20 minutes or so. At the centre of San Marco square was a procession of some sort. SO we decided, and did a bit more souvenir shopping. That night, we stayed in as had rather a long rest after a tired day of shopping!!!

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