Waking up early to get a bus to the mainland jetty, we caught a ferry over the Venice! We learnt some snippets of history from the captain, about how the locals were scared of invading barbarian tribes after the fall of the Roman Empire, so rowed out about two hours into the swampy sea of the Mediterranean. They plunged huge wooden pillions into the sea floors and grew from there. I was then walking about the boat taking photos when the caption invited me up to steer the boat! So pretty funny but very enjoyable:) i didn't crash and got some great pics! We arrive soon after and had a quick walk around the main square to get our bearings. We line up and explore the palace , truly amazing. Every ceiling out does the last, and it also holds the largest single canvas painting in the world. It's impossible to grasp how they achieved so much architecturally on and in, such a crazy location! We walked though the ridge of sighs, which was the prison bridge that lead from the courts within the palace to a horridly tiny underground prison. It was to force the criminals to get one last glorious view of Venice (so they'd sigh about what they were loosing) before entering forever into a windowless pit. We then explored the excitingly narrow and windy streets before making it to another famous bridge, the Rialto Bridge. We then had some lasagna on the river with a few others, and a delicious slice of street pizza on the way to our group gondola ride! This was such a laugh, sharing bottles of sparking and cheering the other groups as we weaves through the many canals. We then all heading to a bar for peach Bellini! We wound up our day in Venice with a big group dinner of antipastos and pastas, with a chocolate pudding for dessert. A sleepy ferry ride and drive back to our hotel on the main land, we chilled in the hotel bar, chatting with every one, before peeling off for an exhausted sleep! Tomorrow we are off to cultural Florence!