Venice

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Arriving by train we were told at the station by a young lady it was only a short walk to the dock to find our ship, and we should be able to manage it easily. It ended up being a tricky journey pulling our suitcases over bridges and cobbled streets for about three kilometres we finally reached our ship. We later found there was a people mover, a type of mono rail that could have taken us most of the way, oh well we needed the exercise.

We were soon unpacked and after dinner decided to walk into Venice, after getting lost half a dozen times in the winding streets we finally made it to St Marks Square. Deciding to spurge we sat at Cafe Florian which had been operating since 1720, soaking up the view of St Marks Square while listening to the orchestra over a few drinks and perfect weather, how lucky. We enjoyed ourselves so much we found it was midnight before we started on our journey back, too late to buy a ticket for a boat ride up the Grand canal to our ship, we had to find our way back through the dark tangle of canals.

We managed to get totally lost until we asked two young ladies for directions and they kindly said we are going to the train station which was close to the port, follow us, thank goodness for the kindness of strangers. Walking back through the now dark pathways lit by the occassional light was a lovely way to see Venice after all the crowds had left. We arrived back so late we had to get onbard via the crew gangway as the passenger gangway had been taken away for the night, we felt a little like naughty teenagers who had stayed out too late.

Our second day we decided to escape the crowds and take a ferry out to Torcello which is way past Murano and Burano. The small island did not have a lot of tourists, besides a Cathedral is really only had a number of cafes and restaurant. We enjoyed a fabulous lunch before getting the ferry back to Venice, we had really enjoyed escaping the crush to this quiet little island. Arriving by ferry back in Venice we walked through the crowds to St Marks Square to get a ferry back to the ship to arrive just in time to sail out to our next port in Slovenia.

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