Italy - Day 33

18-Jun-2007

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Italy - Day 32
Italy - Day 33
Italy - Day 34

 

Day 33 - Thursday 2nd June 2005

We decide to follow one of the walks in a local guide book, it included 20 locations of interest and indicated that it was "..possibly quite tiring..", we walked for hours and managed only the first eight.  The canals are amazing, they aren't just lanes of water for gondolas full of tourists but the cities roads, full of barges, water taxis and little delivery boats.  There are often traffic jams. The weather was perfect and we wandered round winding little alleys, across canals and through markets.  The streets are lined with expensive fashion stores, a multitude of carnivale mask stores, vast numbers of Venetian glass stores and restaurants and ice-cream shops galore.  Many buildings overlooking the canals have flowerboxes festooned with colourful flowers. The Rialto bridge was particularly imposing.  When we got down to Scuola Grande di St. Rocco we decided to catch a water bus down the Grand Canal, the views are marvellous, I’ve snapped so many "post card" shots.  We got off the boat at the gardens down past and walked across a bridge to St. Elena. We set off back for home through back streets and alleys a little off the beaten track. Washing was strung across the streets between the buildings.  We stopped at a little cafe for a refreshing beer before continuing on into the maze again.  We found a little artists shop that we’d spotted the day before and bought a couple of tiny watercolours of Venetian  scenes.  Then it was back along the crowded waterfront, through St. Marks square to home.  We spent a pleasant drinks hour on the hotel terrace overlooking the canal.  As I'm writing this, the strains of a gondolier singing "Amore" are wafting in through the window.  Went out for dinner to a side walk cafe and watched the world walk by, had a lively conversation with a soon to be retired British Bobbie before going for another short walk, just marvellous.

 

 

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