Venice - Town of Drama

Apologies for those following the blog but we hit Venice - town of drama and things started to go wrong.

Most importantly in Venice we encountered a particularly nasty computer virus. It wiped the computer clean (or so it seemed) and we thought for a while we had lost all our pictures! After several hours trying to download anti virus a that I thought I already had (thanks Telstra), I realised that my credit card had been blocked because I was from Australia, in Italy trying to buy something in the US! I get that the bank were only doing their job and I'm sure I'll be grateful for it eventually but bloody hell, the trouble it caused! We're in UK now and the virus has gone, anti virus has been purchased and only a few photos were lost.

Anyway - a summary of our time in Venice. We arrived in Venice to heat yet again and we made our way to our first of many boat rides to our hotel. Imagine our excitement to see that the hotel was directly in front of the water bus stop - this would prove useful!

We checked in and set about exploring the alleys and canals that are Venice on our way to making a Venetian mask. Amazingly we didn't get lost and arrived in time to order lunch before heading to the mask shop. We were shown the ancient art of mask making (it's more involved than you'd think) and set about painting and drying and painting and drying the mask. We added a layer of wax and we were done. Neither of us thought our masks were a patch on the professional ones but we did our best and had fun.

Day two brought us to the islands of Murano, Burano and Torcello. Let's just say that the ride was merely a means to an end - this trip was about shopping and we did very well. Murano is famous for glass blowing and let me tell you - these guys are talented beyond belief. As they were demonstrating the craft, they tell you that you can only apprentice as a glass blower if you are the son of a glass blower, the tradition is passed down father to son and no-one outside the family is allowed. The showroom was air-conditioned (yippee) but also full of the most amazing glass work I've ever seen. The chandeliers were probably the most impressive but started at 15,000 Euro (a little over our budget let alone the cost of getting it home!). With some modest purchases we were off to Burano, famous for lacework. I didn't think we'd buy much here until we saw the amazing artistry of the lace designs, several purchases later and we were a bit shopped out! Torcello is the poor cousin of the islands with a church its only claim to fame. A very tired end to a shopping filled day. We also sampled the delights of St Marks Square and like the tourists we are - we paid 40 Euro for two cokes and two hotdogs!

Day three saw a Grand Canal tour of Venice on one of the gleaming Vaporetto (water taxi's). These are the highly polished taxi's that cost an absolute fortune to ride in but was ours for a lovely tour of each of the six districts of Venice. The tour guide was lovely and we were once again impressed by how much these guides know about their history and culture.

In all Venice was lovely, the canals were quite easy to navigate once you get the hang of the directional bus services and it took about a week for us to stop rocking with the imaginary waves of the canals of Venice!venice