Venice Italy. Sailed in this morning through the Venetian archipelago island after island crowded with houses until we arrived at the main part of Venice sailing down the Grand Canal and reversed in to dock with the other cruise ships. A magical entry to Venice and we could see the whole of Venice from the decks, dwarfing the churches and houses lining the canals. Spending one more night on board before we check out tomorrow morning into our land-bound accommodation. No more 24 hour food including free room service. No more free first class entertainment and in house movies. No more gently rocked to sleep by the ships movement.

Went off ship into Venice heading to San Marco Square. Got lost. Got more lost. There are 450 bridges in Venice and we crossed 297 of them - 348 if you count repeats. The decision to carry the backpack loaded with heavy items for drop-off at tomorrow's hotel weighed increasingly heavily upon me - the more so given our inability to reach the hotel until mid afternoon. Thankfully there were beer stops en route. And toilets. Made our way back to the ship - straight to... beer and pizza of course.
Made a run back to the hotel with our cases so we could help Andre and Patricia with theirs in the morning and was held up reboarding the ship at Customs because a thunderstorm rolled in and we couldn't cross the 50 meters to the ship in the rain - shades of Darwin Airport.