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We arrived in Venice on Thursday and chilled out for the evening, it was torrential rain so we took shelter in the cyber bus and updated our site. We seem to have taken rain with us wherever we go these last few days, we left Munich under a storm cloud too. We stayed in our first real 'Party' site, with Contiki buses arriving everyday, so you can imagine the campsite bar, especially because once you're at the site, Venice is a 25 minute ferry ride away so there's little choice of drinking venue. At least they have a huge wide screen TV so we've been able to watch both the England and Scotland matches in the evenings. Pretty good result Scotland...(blimmin amazing after our performance, then again, Paterson's leg gave us some major help so I can't say anything about him.)
The first day in Venice we walked and walked, there are two choices in this city, you walk or you take the vaporetto (water bus.) So we decided we'd have one day walking and the next day on the boats. This is the first city where I've really felt the tourists just take over, there are hundreds and thousands of Americans, Australians, Brits and Euros of all ages. It's quite overpowering at times and you need to take a break from it every so often, the streets are just so narrow and there are crowds at each site but it's worth it for most of them.
We got to Piazza de San Marco at 9.45 the other morning and there were already big queues b ut they moved really quickly and we were in after 20 mins or so. The Basilica is amazing and definitely the cultural highlight of Venice. Other than that we went up the Campanile, bell tower of San Marco and you get amazing views all around the city, again it was worth the wait. The rest of the time we just walked around getting lost in the little alley ways, trying to choose the less travelled paths, which is hard in Venice, there are people everywhere.
The second day was a day on the water, we took the vaporettos all around the city, the Grand Canal number 1 bus was great for seeing all the palaces that you can't see on foot and then we caught one for the islands of Murano and Burano, famous for lace and glass blowing. Touristy but the multi-coloured fishing villages are very cute. We only stayed for an hour on each one and headed back for some (more) pizza in the evening sun at one of Venice's many piazzas. This was followed by a Bellini at Harry's bar, where Bellinis were invented apparently, it's like a step back in time, with waiters in their white jackets, etc. I half expected Humprey Bogart to stick his head around the door, okay, i know that's Casablanca but it just had that feel.
Heading up to Lake como today and Lake Maggiore, keep us posted on your movements too. Our message board needs some love.
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