Day 23 - Venice

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We had about 3 hours sleep last night, so Mark and Zac were pretty grumpy and not much fun this morning. Add to that Orly airport is crap, and we couldn't get a decent coffee or breakfast, and that made for not a fun wait for the plane.

The flight to Venice was uneventful and once the plane touched down at Marco Polo airport, we were very happy to be near Venice. Our bus dropped us off at Piazzale Romal, then we caught the Vapretto (water bus) to Rialto Bridge. The Vapretto was mad, a 50 foot long barge basically, stuffed full of people and luggage, tossed about on the Grand Canal, passing other smaller boats with often inches to spare.

We then got lost on our way to the hotel, easy to do in Venice, the alleyways are narrow, often you have to turn sideways to let people pass, and they are confusing too, not every alley leads to a bridge, so you have to double back and take a different turn, its like one big citywide maze. I love it. We stopped off at a local pizza place for lunch, Mark and Zac had a Calzone, stuffed full of ham and mozzarella, with a delicious tomato sauce base, I had a spinach and feta pastry, which was excellent. We took a wander to Piazza San Marco, where Zac and I took photos. We sat outside the Doges' palace for a while and just watched the throngs of tourists walk by.

We then walked down to the Rialto bridge, went down the Grand Canal for a bit, then went back to the hotel for a siesta. After that, I wanted to take some sunset shots, so we went back to San Marco, then went for dinner near our hotel. There was a busker playing some smooth jazz on his saxophone which made the atmosphere just perfect. Zac loves Venice, so far it is his favourite place of our trip, perhaps first equal to Istanbul.

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