Venice

Exploring Venice!

We decided to purchase a vaporetto ticket for 36 hours unlimited rides - and jumped straight on to get around to San Marco basilica. Not too much of a queue and we were in. We paid to go up to the roof and upper galleries and it was well worth it to get the views out onto the square and to see the basilica from above - and be close to all the beautiful mosaics.

After that we went wandering for a coffee - in San Marco square the prices were ridiculous ($15 for a coffee), but we walked for ages trying to find any other coffee shops - my theory was that the maon square coffee shops run a mafia that doesn't let in any competetion. Lots of interesting shops and galleries to look at as we wandered.

Then to the Doge's palace - an astonishing array of private chambres, then glorious state rooms to rival Windsor castle then down to the prisons - a very intersting visit.

Onto the vaporetto for a ride up the grand canal back to our hotel for a rest before going out to an opera performance at night! It was basically 2 singers and a piano player performing songs from various operas in a beautiful old church, then another vaporetto ride through the canals in the dark - magic stuff!

Next day we set off (by vaporetto again) for the Accademia which houses Venice's art gallery. It was a beautiful collection of Italian paintings from the 13th to 17th centuries - a beautiful Bellini madonna and child was my favourite, and also a portrait of an old woman which was one of the first portraits of real people to be painted.

We were getting into the vapororetto business and enjoying the boat rides, so we decided to head out to the island of Murano where they do all the glass work. There was heaps of beautiful things including a lot of jewellery - so I decided to do some Christmas shopping - you'll just have to wait Lisa, Steph, Danielle, Marcia and mum for your Christmas presents!

Dinner out with the Verweys for our last night in Venice. Mary picked one out of her book which we found (an achievement in Venice), but was closed - but the one opposite was good and we enjoyed a nice meal of pasta/sardines/meat / vegetables and panna cotta.