Venice by night

So we set off for Gatwick from the Travelodge, hoping to get some petrol on the way to 'Purple Parking'. Not a garage to be seen anywhere on the way. Never mind I thought, I can get some when we get back later in the week. Again not one of my best decisions. To be continued.

Another not so good decision was to get the Alilaguna water bus from Marco Polo airport into Venice, having been told this was the most spectacular way of entering the city, other than paying at least 100€ for a water taxi. It was a very long walk to the pier, and there was a huge queue for quite a tiny water bus. It was bitterly cold and we were advised to leave our cases in a queue and wait in the cafe, and then we could all board the bus in the order we arrived. Not so, as when the next boat arrived there were suddenly loads more people now in the queue in front of us, so we missed the next one too. Overall we must have waited over an hour in the open before we actually got onto a bus, and then we couldn't really see much on the journey from the very low position of the bus in the water. When we got to our stop, Rialto Bridge, we had trouble finding the best way on foot to the hotel. The 10 mins estimated walk took about 30 mins, and numerous bridges had to be negotiated with 2 heavy cases.

Our hotel however was very nice. The main blip shows the exterior on the Grand Canal, complete with giant hand sculptures coming out of the water. The extras show a couple more night shots, one of the canal from the Rialto Bridge, and the other shows one of the very many Murano glass souvenir shops.

Despite the hassle of actually getting there from the airport we have by now decided that we really like Venice! It is very, very cold though.

Back-blipped on 2 Mar