Another brilliant day in Venice today. We had a lot to pack into one day and we managed to achieve everything we set out to do.

We began with an early tour around the Doge's palace, just off Piazza San Marco. This was very interesting, giving us a full history of Venice's merchant past, dating back to the 1100's when Venice was a global power. We saw where prisoners were kept right in the bottom floors of the same palace building used by the Doge. Casanova was imprisoned here for about 18 months and escaped.

We also saw where Venetian commerce was managed, including a huge filing room where documentation of all trades was kept. It sounds boring, but was actually quite interesting.

We then walked through the bridge of sighs and took a few photos from the inside out.

After this we took a private launch to the island of Burano. This island is about 30 minutes boat ride from Venice and is absolutely beautiful. It is essentially a fishing village with great seafood and as is traditional in Italy, each house is painted in a different, very bright, colour.

It is also very famous for its lace work, and so after a magnificent lunch in a restaurant named Al Gatto Nero, we bought a gorgeous lace butterfly that was hand-made by the lady who sold it to us.

After this we caught the ferry back to Venice. After checking my street map, I suddenly remembered where a mask shop was that we really loved last time we came to Venice. We spent an hour or two looking for this shop yesterday and couldn't find it. After my epiphany, we went straight to the shop, which is owned by a lovely Italian man named Mario. He was still there when we turned up and Lidia had a lengthy conversation with him in Italian.

We bought a small mask and a cat doll from him and then walked over the Pont D'Academia to the western island where a gelato shop recommended to us resides. We tried their signature treat, which is basically a cup of whipped cream with a large chunk of chocolate ice cream crammed into it. It was OK, but not great.

We then went to see a gondola ship building yard, which was interesting.

After this we went back to our hotel and enjoyed the bottle of prosecco the hotel left for my birthday. We then went to another recommended restaurant for dinner, called Al Volto. This was basically a tiny little restaurant, very dodgy inside, but with awesome food. I had a tuna steak encrusted with pistachios, with sundried tomatoes and balsamic vinegar. It was truly one of the best meals I have ever had. Lidia's tagliatelle Bolognese was not as good, but still better than the food we ate last time we came to Venice.

We then wandered slowly back to our hotel via the Rialto bridge. On the way back we happened across a shop selling the most magnificent puppets. We really have spent enough money in Venice, but we simply couldn't go past a cat puppet which was stunning.

All in all a very busy, productive, exhausting and expensive day!