Dinner on Saturday night would have to have been the best of the trip so far! How good is 'googling':) This wonderful woman who writes for the Telegraph UK, has lived in Venice for 25 years and knows her food, recommended a place in a 'never could be found without GPS' part of the city. Thank goodness Johno had downloaded his 'city maps' app. It's usefulness may be questionable when it comes to the 'must sees' they recommend, but the location maps are brilliant! The place was called Ai Mercanti (aimercanti.it) and the food and wine was amazing. Another couple sat next to us, who were from Brissy and fantastic company. We ended up staying quite late and being politely asked to leave;)
Sunday we caught the Vaporetta (ferry) to the island of Murano. It has an amazing history mostly revolving around the craft of Glass blowing. Beautiful place to wander around - not a lot of tourists but lots of tourist shops - all selling their glass products. - got to be a bit of a 'pane' really. (Sorry, had to put a pun in for Nick) Funniest site was a ferry travelling down one of the canals packed with a group of fanatical football supporters. There was a local match on today and the boys were on fire - literally! There were flares out every window of the ferry, filling the sky with smoke. They were bashing the sides of the boat, waving flags and chanting a deafening team song. Everyone thought it was fantastic - cheering and clapping as they passed - even the riot police, with guns at the ready, met them with a smile and escorted them to the ground. Only in Italy:) We saw beautiful churches and a very special cemetery (don't often hear those 2 words in the same sentence:) and we thoroughly enjoyed our day. Ferry ride home a little disturbing as a guy with a large bag on his back got on, and he looked downright weird. John was convinced it was a guitar in the bag, and the worst thing he could attack us with was a plectrum, but I wasn't convinced. I 'persuaded' John to hop off the boat about 5 stops early and walk, as I did not want to end up as a headline in tomorrow's Venice Times! 'Tourist attacked with rare Venetian musical instrument':)
Dinner at a restaurant we had seen the night before. Lovely again, and again got 'cosy' with the couple at the next table (mind you, the tables are so close together there is not much choice), and talked till far too late.
Tomorrow we leave beautiful Venice and head by train to Rome.
Xx