Last night we arrived in Venice after a leisurely drive up from Rome. We left early this morning to park in the huge carpark Tronchetto and took a ferry around the back of Venice around to St Mark's Square for a glass blowing demonstration. It was great and the glass in the shop there is all handmade on the island Murano and is of course amazing elaborate, precious and expensive. I was very excited to finally go on a gondola in Venice! There were six of us in...

Yesterday we arrived for our night in Venice and had the perfect entrance by ferry up the Grand Canal to Piazza San Marco. After making it to our hotel through swarms of pigeons in the Piazza (much to Mum's delight) we wandered the small streets of the San Marco area over to the Rialto Bridge. Our room looked over a lovely little canal and it was fascinating to watch how they move people, food and building materials around the place on boats, gondolas and weird...