Day 11

Day 11

Venice ???. The Captain needs his knuckles rapped. He got us here about 20 - 30 minutes late to get the best of the golden light as we sailed past St Marks Square.
However, it was still a super morning and quite something to be able to lie in your bed and watch one of the worlds? most romantic cities slide past your window.
Not that we did.
We were up on deck making the most of it.
And by up, I mean UP.
On deck we were looking down on buildings 8 stories high (and there are another 4 decks you can go up).

What a fantastic city Venice is with an amazing history.
The architecture and carving is out of this world with the most incredible selection of marble being used to show the opulence of days gone by.

In the morning we were able to see St Marks? Square and listen to the music being played by a quartet outside what is propably the most expensive coffee shop anywhere (no - I wasn?t daft enough to get mugged there).
By the afternoon you were not able to see about the lowest 6? of the square due to thee sea of people.

It is not surprising that people who move to Venice take years to be able to find their way about - the place is just a warren of high, narrow alleys that make it almost impossible to maintain a sence of direction and which keep on opening up into little squares with statues and pillars ???? wonderful fun.

Gondola rides are expensive - but a must.
The skill of our gondolier in placing the boat inch perfect between other boats and when turning corners was amazing.
It is a great way to see some of the hidden treasures.
Surprisingly the Rialto Bridge is great for shopping and is a real bottleneck for traffic on the Grand Canal. It was most entertaining watching the boats fighting to get through and listen to the shouting and bawling at each other. They have no system of keeping to the right or left (too sensible). Typical Italians really.

All in all it was a great day, topped off nicely with some bubbly while listening to some wonder classical music as we sailed out past St Marks Square again - and then a fantastic sunset.

Ahhhhh - Bliss.