A ride along the coast from Miramare under a clear blue sky, heading for Venice. A one night stop en-route at Latisana. Boy what a one horse, nothing happening place that is. Bicycles are not allowed in Venice so we headed for Punta Sabbioni on the headland that forms part of the Venice lagoon. We expected to see Venice across the lagoon as we neared our destination. The weather had other ideas, we rode in fog all day which just got thicker and thicker the further we rode. From Punta Sabbioni we ferry hopped over to the Lido de Venezia. The Lido island shelters Venice from the sea helping to create the lagoon, bicycles are allowed and Venice is just a short ride away on the boat bus. It was still foggy the following day but better than when we arrived. Coming here in summer may mean you can wander round in shorts and T-shirts and enjoy the Italian sunshine but apparently the number of tourists then is overwhelming, we couldn't believe how many were here mid-November. Neither of us have been to Venice before, we weren't disappointed it was everything we imagined and more. A maze of canals, Piazzas connected by narrow streets, alleys and bridges. Coffee and cake shops everywhere, gondolas galore. The lady at our hotel advised us to 'get lost' in Venice and explore the back streets. We didn't quite do that as we used our garmin to navigate our way round and clocked up 11.25 miles on foot. Donna had a new toy as the screen on our laptop detaches so you can use it as a tablet. For the first time we (Donna) used it as a camera, so between us we took around 300 photos in one day!! We didn't shell out on a gondola trip but we did catch the boat bus down the full length of the Grand Canal and back to the Lido - a bargain compared to price of a Gondola ride and with great views, but no serenading and no Cornetto. There is a lack of benches in Venice and you can get fined for sitting on steps to eat your packed lunch! If you ever plan a visit to Venice and want to eat and drink at the osterias, gelaterias and bars then bring plenty of Euros. It looks like we did well with the weather in Venice as today we planned to cycle around Lido Island which is less commercialised than Venice, however the bad weather rolled in yesterday evening and it hasn't stopped raining all day. We took a very windy, very wet stroll to the docks and watched the water buses struggling to moor to let passengers on and off. The waterbuses run all day and night and this little swell in the lagoon is supposedly nothing to fret over, it's the really heavy fog that gives the boats problems - finding their way and not colliding with each other. Plenty of tourists / locals have been trying to shelter under their brollies so much so that every bin has got one or more broken brollies in them and there are plenty more scattered in the streets. We have beat a hasty retreat to our digs and the one English channel we can find on TV which only seems to be showing 'Happy Days' and 'Little House on the Prairie', hopefully we won't have to suffer 'The Waltons' as well. I swap Titty's (rear) chain over every 500 miles and as we have just broken 2500 miles it's time to change again. I was going to do it here, but Titty is stored in a sort of tent extension at the rear of the hotel. This morning one side is ripped open and Titty was on her side under a patio heater! Can't see any damage. The tent is rammed with tables, chairs bikes and more, the wind is gusting through it, the rain is coming in, the tent is flapping and bellowing, it's bitter cold - the chain change is going to wait! As we are three weeks behind our estimated plan we were hoping to catch a ferry from here to Croatia and claw back some time but they stopped running at the end of October for the year. The next plan was to get a train back to Trieste to avoid pedalling the same route and save us a couple of days. According to the Italian rail website bikes are allowed on 'intercity' services in boxes only but you can wheel them on some regional trains. We enquired about this, to be told that bikes are allowed on the service to Trieste (unboxed) but we would have to buy tickets for us and the Titty and hope that they would allow us on with a tandem. In light of the uncertainty we have decided to pedal back to Trieste starting tomorrow, the good news is the forecast is dry, sunny and not so windy.