Venice

Hello hello! How I have missed you all! I'm back from Venice with so many pictures to share and stories to tell, I could fill hundreds of posts but I will try and keep them to a minimum :)

I'll start by telling you about Venice...not a load of history but I might add in a few facts here and there :) From the plane it looked beautiful- really Italian with terracotta tiles on all the roofs, and loads of water. It's an island but is basically a network of canals, with the grand canal going through the middle. The streets are mainly alleyways but with loads of bridges over the water (455 to be exact) I didn't see a single car/bike/moped the whole time! There are so many boats though, the canals are full of gondolas while the surrounding sea has water buses which seem to be the main way of getting around. But yes, it's a beautiful place, amazing architecture with churches round every corner! We stayed near St Marks square which is the busiest part, the whole place is full of tourists!

So here's what we got up to...

Wednesday
We got the plane from East Midlands airport (me and my mum) arrived in Venice then got the water bus to the main island. We found the hotel then had a wander around the city including to Rialto bridge which was really busy but had a great atmosphere.

(one of the the water bus stops)

Thursday
We bought a day water bus ticket and first went to the old Jewish Ghetto- it was amazing with 5 synagogues hidden inside the buildings. It poured it down with rain so we sat in a cafe for a while before getting the bus to random places and just exploring :)

(me outside the entrance to the ghetto)

Friday
We went to the Peggy Guggenheim modern art collection in the afternoon and saw some amazing art like Picasso, Klee, Dali and Mondrian. We went to a few churches and then St Mark's Basilica which was huge! Then spent the evening wandering round, especially in St Mark's square where they have bands playing music so it's a great atmosphere.

(Basilica di San Marco)

Saturday
We got a free water taxi to the glass factory on Murano island (courtesy of the hotel) which was really interesting. The island was pretty but they didn't let us walk round much, they wanted to take us back quickly and dropped us on a completely random part of the island- it took us 40mins to walk back to St Mark's! We spent the rest of the day visiting other sights, got an ice cream and drank lots of coffee :P

(An empty cappuccino :P)

Sunday
We spent a while negotiaing prices with gondoliers and finally found a french couple to share the cost with. So we had a nice gondola trip through the canals, we then walked across the city seeing different churches, eating in nice cafes and stopping to take lots of photos!

(A gondalier under one of the many bridges!)

Monday
We went up the big tower in St Mark's square and could see the whole of Venice it was stunning. We then went to cafe Florian which is really posh- my mum really wanted to go there before we left! We got charged an extra €6 each because the band was playing! We got the bus to the airport after queuing for ages in the sun to find our flight was delayed for 3hrs 20mins -.- We finally got the plane home after a long journey :)

(Posh cafe, opened in 17 something!)

So yes that's about it for what we actually did, that's just the basics. We went for loads of nice meals and spent most of the time wandering around just getting lost and exploring the city. It really is beautiful, if any of you are planning a holiday then consider going, I had a brilliant time and would love to go back!

Thank you for reading, Georgina xx