Arriving in the afternoon our first mission in Venice was to try and find our hotel,not necessarily the easiest thing to do in this town. We were staying in the suburb of Santa Croce which is between the railway station and the busy tourist area around San Marco. We had a little map provided by the hotel which showed us which streets to go down but its not until we got there that we realised streets in Venice were quite different to our usual idea of streets. Tiny little alleyways between buildings constitute streets here and it felt like we were weaving through a maze as we made our way to the hotel. Surprisingly we found it without too much problem and after dropping off our gear headed back out into the maze of streets to look around. Without any cars it was so different to any other city we had been too and made it suited to wandering around on foot. Our area was away from the main tourist centre which was good as food was much more reasonable here in a city renowned for being expensive.

The following day we set off to see San Marco Square. Thinking it would take us ages as it appeared a long way on the map we were surprised to find it only 30 or 40min as the sreets are so narrow and condensed. The sqaure itself was packed with people and it was extremely hot. We wandered down along the water then decided to catch a ferry out to the island where the glass factories are, Murano. Here we were able to see how the ornaments get made and watched in wonder as right before our eyes a horse was created out of a blob of molted glass. We then parted with our money in the shop next door.

Venice was beautiful. By the end of our 3 days we had pretty much seen it all, twice over, but with so many little shops it was easy to pass the time.

Next we move onto Florence.