Most people apparently dream of visiting Venice and here we are at last!
Firstly though we had to catch the train in Florence - we were very sorry to leave Florence - certainly a place we would love to come back to and felt there was more to see and do. It was an interesting train trip. The first half was through Tuscany and because of the hilly country, most of it was through tunnels so you don't get to appreciate the Tuscan countryside - but the bits we did see looked really beautiful. This area is on the wish list for a future bike ride so hopefully those hills we went through are not too high!! After Tuscany we travelled through very flat but obviously very fertile farmland with all sorts of crops including huge areas if grapes - very prosperous looking farmhouses, large rivers and lots of irrigation development.
Arrived in Venice at about 12.30 and had the instructions to get to the hotel which was supposed to be very close - only problem was that the instructions were a bit ambiguous so we crossed the "ponte" (bridge) the wrong way before finding we were supposed to go the other way so got to drag the luggage over all those steps again!! The hotel WAS quite close to the station so we booked in OK and got all the info for our three days in this amazing city.
We spent the afternoon going for a very slow walk around to the Rialto bridge where coincidentally we stood right at the rail on the right side just as a huge boat-race approached with police boats clearing all the gondolas and other traffic. Crossed lots of "pontes" and canals and have seen lots of gondolas already so getting the feel of venice - it certainly is beautiful, unique and the crowds so far have been not so bad so we'll see how it goes.
Pretty ordinary dinner tonight - went to the closest Ristorante two doors down from the hotel and the food was OK - joined by about 50 Japanese in tour party which sort of destroyed the atmosphere!!
trivia:If anyone is wondering why we have been quiet on text messages, we have found out that we have no "roaming" carrier in Italy - we can't send/receive phone messages - sorry!
pictures -
* first view of gondolas - probably lots more to come!!
* Got to be the worst example of "kitch" we've ever seen - in a Venetian church - you don't light a candle- you just flick the switch and a light comes on!!!
* Boat race on the Grand canal - taken from the Rialto bridge
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