Venezia

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Out of the Villa at 7am for a train ride into Firenze, discovering that we wouldn't be able to catch a train to Venezia until 2 hours later. Wandered around and had some food, then hopped on the train for a two and a half hour trip that seemed like an hour. Arrived at Venice about 1.15pm, walked out of the train station and were immediately met with water, beautiful building and many tourists. We noticed the slightly different food, sweets and pastries immediately (being a different region) and enjoyed walking the narrow streets towards St Marks square, crossing over little canals as we went. There were so many shops, some full of beautiful hand painted ceramic masks, ranging from really tiny to absolutely huge - all stunning and full of gold, silver or bright colors. Yet again, another hot day so we bought cold drinks as we went, and after taking in the sights of St Marks square, hopped onto a gondola for a peaceful trip around the back 'streets'. It was hard to believe we were finally doing this!!! Sitting on a gondola in Venice!! We went past Marco Polo's house, as well as 'Casanova's' (??!!) and a couple of very important palaces. Off the gondola, a bit of shopping and some paninis then back to the train station for our trip home. What an adventure that was....Had to change trains at Bologna, but we stopped in a town called Padova where we were delayed for 30 mins, thus going to miss our next train in Bologna. Had to get off and organise a different train - luckily the nice ticket man looked after us and organised another train for no extra charge (??!!). So as Lochie pointed out, we spent 3 1/2 hours in Venice but 10 1/2 hours out of the Villa and on trains!!! Even so, Ains and Lochie were both fantastic - hardly complained and as long as they had food and cold drinks they were happy. Finally got back to our Villa at about 10.20pm and fell into bed after cool showers. Love to everyone xxx

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Comments

[liz]

Dear Griswolds
wow it all sounds fabulous, we enjoy reading your emails, just be careful you don't tie anyone to the back of your car before you take off!