Day 32 - Wednesday 1st June 2005

Set off early for Venice.  Weather is clear and hot.  Jude spent much of the trip in near hysterics, my arms were locked on the wheel and I saw none of the scenery.  I was feeling exuberant driving out of Milan so had a wonderful time sweeping around piazzas and bluffing local drivers for exit lanes, but this started to wear after a while and flying down the autostrada at 130kph+ surrounded by trucks became fairly serious business. Eventually arrived at the toll station just outside Venice, paid the toll and exited into the most atrocious traffic tangle I have ever been in (there was a major transport strike that day).  We just barrelled through however and "eventually" arrived at the car park on the edge of Venice.  Left the car there and caught the water bus down to a stop close to the hotel.  Trudged through narrow streets over canals and finally daw a sign pointing down an alley to our hotel.  The alley was about a metre wide and led to a little piazza and the front door of our hotel.  The outside is somewhat unprepossessing but the inside is a palace, in fact it was originally the Doge's palace about 400 years ago.  We were conducted to our room which was huge with lovely furniture and a view of the central courtyard garden.  The entrance hall and bathroom are floored and decorated in marble, very tasty.  We headed off to San Marco square, just a few yards away, and then wandered along the canal front for a while before losing ourselves in the narrow winding back streets, criss-crossing narrow canals.  Incredibly busy with hordes of tourists and a large amount of construction "flood proofing" San Marco Square.  The weather was perfect, hot and clear.  We ended up back in San Marco where the facade of the palace is just beautiful, lots of stalls selling colourful carnivale masks.  There were about a billion pigeons feeding there and a couple of little New Zealand kids were alternately feeding them and trying to drop kick them.  We went back to the hotel and changed for dinner.  Walked around for a while and found nothing immediately to hand to fit the mood so eventually had dinner on back at the hotel on the terrace over the Grand Canal.  It was delightful, the weather was perfect, the gondolas were rocking at their moorings, the food was excellent and the prices were amazing.  We met a nice Paduan couple having dinner for their 3rd wedding anniversary.