What more can I say about Venice? Having slept later than we intended, Chris and I took the shuttle along the Grand Canal to St Mark’s Square to arrive just before midday. We sat in the open at the front of the boat. The sun was shining, and the canal was full of water buses and taxis. I now genuinely believe that I prefer Venice even over Florence. Like Florence it exudes history but it flaunts it less. Venice has nothing to prove. It knows it is special. Venice is a small city, extremely concentrated, every corner, monument, Church or museum contains a piece of history, a tale, or a tradition.
It takes years to train to be a gondolier, yet they stand on street corners and sell their services like second hand car salesmen. The shops are overfull with high quality souvenirs from Murano glass or with Harlequin connections. Contrary to what we expected they are not excessively over-priced. We spent a considerable number of Euros on the grandchildren, and rather less on ourselves...can’t say what we bought in case the family are reading this!! Having arrived in town late, we stopped at a little bistro type cafe in an outer alley way near St Mark’s Square. The pasta was freshly made to order and of very, very high quality. Chris said it was the best Lasagne he had ever tasted.
So now, it is dark. We are sailing out of a moonlit Venice ready to disembark in Split, Croatia at lunchtime tomorrow. See you all then,
Claire
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