Painfully up at 5am this morning for the long drive to Venice. I managed to herd my passengers down to the bus and then we set off, back in the direction of Florence. I smiled to myself as I went passed it, imagining myself dancing with Phillipo again.
We drove for most of the day and arrived in Mestre at about 4pm, I had tried to bring our guided tour forward, but the guide was not very co-operative. Gary and I walked everyone to the bus stop, got 46 people on the public bus and then walked them to the Rialto bridge to meet the guide. Before we met the guide we managed to get some of them onto gondolas with the spare time we had. Unfortunately, these particular gondoliers had set up a racket, where by they pretended to call their friends, when really they were making other members of the group wait until the first lot of people had come back, thereby doubling their takings. Pity for them we didn't have time for that. After that we then handed the group over to the guide and then Gary went to meet up with one of the other drivers and I went off for a look around.
I love Venice. I walked over the Rialto bridge and through all the little twisting and turning alleys. The place is magical and I couldn't believe my luck being back here. I ended up in St Marks square, and ran into the group, some of whom gave me confused stares, obviously wondering how I had managed to get here ahead of them.
Charlotte, Sam, Ali, Don and Andrea wanted to get a gondola and they had a spare spot, so I got on with them. We actually got to go right under the bridge of sighs, which for once had no scaffolding on it! It was wonderful to see the groups faces, experiencing Venice for the first time, especially when one gondola passed us with the gondolier singing and another guy in the gondola playing the accordion.
We got off the gondola and went to find food, which turned out to be awesome Venetian Pizza. Everyone else then decided to go back to the hotel and watch the football, which I thought was an abomination. I told them I was going to sit in San Marco until it got dark, apparently the way I described it made Ali want to join me, so we headed back, through all the twisting and turning alleyways following the yellow signs pointing to San Marco, some of which that were often contradictory and pointed in two separate directions.
Once there I insisted we go around the main square and for a walk along the sea front. Ali loves his photography, so he was stopping to take pictures at all the little bridges and of the cruise ship that was pulling in all lit up. I also had fun testing all the different settings on my camera. Before we hit the square at night, Ali actually bought a tripod off the street vendors.
As we neared the square, I looked at Ali and said, Do you trust me? He said he did, so I said, Close your eyes and follow me. I grabbed his arm and walked him to the end of the square, so when he opened his eyes, his first look at the square would be of the buildings all lit up, with the lights making a vanishing point. Judging by his reaction, I think he was quite impressed.
The square with its surrounding four story building, was all lit up. Not only were the arched windows illuminated, but tiny lights shone from each corner of each window. There were four different mini orchestras playing various classical pieces, dances, musical numbers and even a bit of Frank, all in turn so as not to play over the top of each other. Waiters in fancy uniforms ran about, serving people in the expensive cafes and people in the cafes drank expensive wine and listened to the music.
I then decided we should sit in one of the cafes and have a drink. I was just going to get a glass of champagne, but Ali insisted we split a bottle of expensive wine. If your going to do something you may as well do it right. We sat there drinking our wine, listening to the wonderful music of the orchestra and admiring our magical surroundings, occasionally looking at each other and saying things like, Football? Screw the Football! One of the best moments was when the orchestra at our restaurant started playing Music of the Night from the Phantom of the Opera. I started singing along softly, thinking about how apt the lyrics were. Let your mind start a journey to a strange new world, leave all thoughts of the world you knew before……. I sang to myself.
When we finished our wine and the orchestra stopped playing, and we hung around in the square taking photos for a bit longer and then we managed to find our way back to Piazzale Roma to get the last bus back Mestre, which was a total fluke on my part as I had never gotten that particular bus before. On the way back I managed to call in at another hotel, to ask about a phone I was supposed to pick up, but the staff there knew nothing about it. So we went back to the hotel, said good night and went to bed, in time to get up at stupid o'clock again.