Venice......WOW what an interesting place.

Great because you are not competing with or choking on exhast fumes from cars and scooters as they are not allowed in venice for obvious reasons. After reading that 20 million visitors a year frequent Venice and being here in their holiday time, I can tell you that unless you go off the beaton, well trod path, this place is chockers with tourist.

Three nights and two whole days gave us not a lot of time to explore but we managed to get to the Islands of Murano and Burano as well as cruise the Grand Canal on day 1.

Murano was facinating with its array of glass art manufactures. From plates, glasses, vases and many works of art, there is nothing that they cannot create. Negotiating a price is an art in itself :-)

The island of Burano is famous for its lace. The town is full of little old ladies sitting in brightly coloured house creating lace masterpieces. This is definately a girls haven (says Anna).

Our boat tickets gave us unlimited access to the waterways for 12 hours, so we made the most of it and cruised the Grand Canal which was the best way to view the magnificent architecture of the grand old buildings and their history.

Day 2 was walk to city day. With the amount of tourists here we tried to navigate the back streets to avoid the crush and the tacky tourists shops full of mass produced trinkets. In San Marco square the line up to get into the only free entry church stretched almost the length of the square, so we gave that a miss. We said 12 Hail Marys and hoped for the best .-)

Sorry Phil, no King George Whiting to be had here ....... but check out my new boat in the photos!!!!!

Next stop Cinque Terre .....

Ciao for now

Davide é Anna