Waking up after a generally good nights sleep our breakfast was delivered. I had yogurt, coffee, juice & rolls with turkey & cheese. Soon after we arrived into Venice Mestre, surprisingly a few minutes early and after reserving our train in a few days to Naples with no problems we walked a few blocks to the hotel to leave our bags before returning to the station for a train to Venice, only 10mins away. Arriving into Santa Lucia station we walked out to a view of the Grand Canal in front of us and hoards of tourists streaming every which way. Crossing the bridge to our left we began our round about wander towards San Marco square although somehow we managed to come to the Rialto bridge before the square via the winding lane ways and various canals filled with boats and gondolas. Once again we were at the Grand Canal and we sat down at a water side cafe for a cappuccino (quite a good one too) & some people and boat watching. Crossing over the Rialto bridge we kept wandering through small squares with cafes, fountains & of course churches and along more canals jammed with gondolas until we came to San Marco square. The square was as I remembered, full of pigeons and tourists. After a quick look around we kept moving as the lines were long for both the tower & the cathedral and we had seen enough of both. We wandered along the water out of the square in the general direction of the Accademia bridge and coming to a large square lined with restaurants we stopped for some lunch. I ordered tagliatelle bolognese & Sean a pizza. My pasta wasn't a big serve but enough for lunch & tasty (although a little stingy for €11 perhaps..... But this is Venice). Sean pizza was the pick.
Receiving the bill I remembered the Italian custom of cover charges. €3 each- Grr! I wanted to do a bit of shopping so we looped back in the direction of the Rialto bridge again where I picked up a few small things then we crossed the bridge and took the street through Cannaregio back towards the station. Our feet were quite tired & we had certainly walked a lot of the cobblestone streets of Venice so we took the train back to Mestre and checked into the hotel. We were a little disappointed with our room as despite good reviews it was pretty worn & the bathroom not overly clean. We had been quite spoilt so far with the quality of hotels we had booked so we made do. After a bit of a rest & a recommendation from reception we walked up to the main street for some more Italian for dinner. This time I had pizza & Sean had pasta which we washed down with some watery Italian red wine. Dinner was at least a few euros cheaper each than lunch & even the cover charge was only €2 each. Having had an early dinner it was only 7.30 when we wandered back to the hotel but after the overnight train & exploring Venice we were asleep not long after nine.