Mick on duty again.

Our sleep patterns were a bit disrupted last night- residual jet lag and what I hope is the tail end of the cold I've had for a fortnight. I gave up on sleep about 6 and managed some communications with our host in Rome and the SMH cryptic before the day got under way properly.

A few reflections on our first time staying in Venice - our previous visits were day trips. If someone said: "Hey. I've got a great idea. Let's build a city in a swamp that is constantly sinking. It won't have any roads and the paths that are there will be narrow and winding. We'll have these slightly bent boats full of tourists to whom kitsch Italian songs will be sung. It will flood pretty regularly and the normal inhabitants will be driven out by tourists. Would you invest in it?

And yet, as she gathers the tattered skirts of fading glory around her in an air of genteel decay, La Serenissima manages to be utterly beguiling. Probably because the very proposition of her existence is so fundamentally improbable. Maybe because nothing seems "normal" - from the waterborne commerce to the dog-legged and twisted lanes and even the local dialect which seems so much more prominent than elsewhere in Italy- you are constantly reminded that there is, and will only ever be (despite the efforts of Las Vegas and Dubai) only one Venice. Get here before she drowns- in water and/or people.

Today was a special day as we spent it with my brother Andrew and his wife Sue. They have been on the road since March- Middle East, Africa, UK, Ireland and various parts of Europe. They came across from Bologna- a city that has charmed them like it did us some years ago.

We took the vaporetto to Santa Lucia station and got our tickets for the Italo.treno to Rome for next Monday. It will be our first experience of Italy's second major intercity railway company. A and S arrived "in orario" and we ambled along until we found a likely looking cafe to sit down and have a good catch up on all the news- a process that continued throughout the day. Once the major stories were told we went back to take the cruise back down the Grand Canal to San Marco where we basically just soaked up the majesty of the square and its buildings. Task 2 was a serious lunch, and we went to a place that we had read about that is famous for its cicchetti- Venetian "tapas". Al Gazzettino - named after the local paper more than lived up to its reputation. We just asked the waitress to bring us some plates of locale specialties to share. All seafood- some things we recognised, some we didn't, some we had eaten before and some we hadn't. On offer were baby octopus, squid, squid in squid ink, baccala, sardines in saor, (onions, raisins, pine nuts and vinegar), various types of prawns, scallops, razor clams ... all washed down with a red wine called Piave. Three types of dessert. Coffee. Fragolino (Strawberry version of limoncello) and grappa! Great food, great reunion, great service and it became a gift for our anniversary from Andrew and Sue. Thank you!

We navigated our way back to the station - with only a few wrong turns - and bid A and S farewell. Next stop for them Florence before heading to NY for Christmas with all their kids- then Canada and home for the end of January. Quite an odyssey.

We jumped back on the vaporetto and basically recovered from the excesses of the day. I've dealt with photos, and, as you can see- the blog! That's all for now.