Up super early this morning for an Italian continental breakfast – it’s interesting the way each country differs in what they eat for breakfast and it’s funny to see how they try and cater for the tourists diet :)

We left the hotel on the bus just before 8am and headed towards town. Traffic was reasonably light so it was easy going – Hans and Colette were exchanging words in German/Austrian, obviously working out the best route to take. After stopping to collect the bus permit, we headed out across the causeway to the main parking island, one of the several hundred islands that collectively form Venice.

Everyone boarded a large cruiser and motored out through the larger parts of the lagoon waters. We passed several large and obviously expensive private yachts and cruisers.



We went past one of the entrances to the Grand Canal which wends through the centre of the island group in an S shape. Further along we docked near a heap of other boat moorings where water taxis, water busses, water delivery vans and even some Gondolas were tied up going about their business.

The group disembarked and walked along the waterside towards St Marks Square, the historical centre of Venice. Crossing some four or five canal bridges along the way, we got some great views down some of the “side streets” as it were – I say that literally because there are no streets in this part of Venice, at least none which cars are able to drive on - boats are the only motorised form of transport available here.



We arrived in St Mark’s Square just in time to see the traditional raising of the three flags at 9am (performed every Sunday morning usually) by some very smart looking Italian navy cadets.



We took a brief photo stop in the square (while it was basically empty of tourists, due to the early start of our day – thank god) to take pictures of the café’s, museum, clock tower and (of course) the Basilica. Amazing ornate decorations covered the outside of the building that is almost a thousand years old.



Down a few quiet and beautiful side streets, we made our way towards a Venetian glass factory. Among other things, Venice is famous for its glassware that is traditionally hand made on the island of Murano. The factory we visited is one of the few allowed to exist inside the city centre due to the high risk of fire, as, despite the abundance of water, Venice hasn’t always had great fire protection systems in place.



We had a guide take us through the factory where we saw one of the glass artists (as he called them) demonstrate how various forms of glassware are made – the first piece was a hand rolled and then blown vase – an amazing thing to see, glass glowing red hot (2000+ degrees C) as it comes out of the fire on the end of a long hollow pipe, then with a quick blow of air down the pipe, the vase started to immediately take shape.

The group gasped with horror as the artist threw the lovely vase back into the fire (they rarely keep demonstration pieces) but he quickly grabbed another glob of molten glass and demonstrated another technique without blowing – he manipulated the molten mass of glass by spinning the pipe (preventing the glass from just falling off the end) and, with a pair of large tweezers, started pulling and shaping bits of the glass – he gradually, with another scissor like tool, extruded the shape and pattern of a horse, reared up on it’s hind legs. I’ve got a movie of this work, however it’s quite large (12Mb) so beware it will take time to download!



We were then led into a magnificent room with mirrors for walls and glass shelves from floor to ceiling, all around the room – on each shelf was an amazing range of glassware – from decanters to fancy tea sets, they had it all.



The guide sat us down around a table that had a selection of their wares on show – he demonstrated how durable the products were by banging them rather heavily on a glass mirror, which was lying on the table. I’m sure they wouldn’t stand up quite as well on concrete, but anyway. He explained how the various colours were obtained in the glass, including the amazingly unique Venetian Red glass, which is made using 24-carat gold flakes melted in with the glass to get the colour. In addition to providing the unique red colour to the glass, gold also makes it extremely strong and resistant to breakage.

Next came the sales pitch – members of the group were offered the chance to purchase Murano glass from this factory at a significant discount – Kaye and I both fell headlong for the pitch (which was extremely great value, really, truly, it was, really!) and bought a Venetian red decanter and glass set with 8 glasses, each decorated with 24 carat gold as well as being made of the glass/gold mix. The decanter was also decorated with gold leaf, quite a fancy looking piece on it’s own. Kaye also wanted a pair of vases, so we got one blue and one green one.



After paying for the glass with plastic (how ironic), we arranged for it to be shipped home with plenty of insurance. The factory guarantee safe delivery to our door, and will replace anything that breaks in transit. They also guarantee to be able to provide exact replacement glasses at any time in the future should additional pieces be required.

We made our way back to the square and Colette took the six of the group, which had opted in for the Gondola ride, down to a canal dock deep inside the side streets/canals. We boarded a Gondola – Robert & Maureen from Sydney, Keith and Nadia from Los Angeles together with Kaye and I from Adelaide.



The gondolier took us on a relaxing 50 minute ride around the canals of Venice – through back ‘streets’ as well as onto the Grande Canal – we went past the houses of Marco Polo, Casanova and a few other historically memorable names – and even passed under the Rialto Bridge.



We lapped up the luxurious ride and took quite a few pictures of the amazingly beautiful canals in and around this part of Venice. Sadly, all good things come to an end so we disembarked back where we had started and headed off to meet Colette for the lagoon cruise and lunch.

The cruiser was waiting for us near where we had arrived earlier that morning so it wasn’t hard to find – or at least it wasn’t for us :-). Vanessa and her sister had gotten lost (again) and, after waiting fifteen minutes, Colette made the difficult decision to leave without them – we would be back later, but meanwhile the pair would have to fend for themselves in terms of getting lunch and staying out of the hot sun.

The cruiser set out across the huge lagoon and motored out towards one of the outer islands in the lagoon – the lagoon has posts sticking out of the water with lamps on top to mark out the “roads” that exist for boats travelling between the islands – this is also where many of the services lay under the water (power, fibre optics, etc) to make it easy to find them when maintenance is required. Amazing stuff.

We arrived at the island hungry and hot – it was nice on the boat with the breeze blowing, but once it stopped the heat set in. We strolled quickly through the streets to our restaurant, which was thankfully a lot cooler under the shade of the awning.



The group sat down at three tables and enjoyed a fantastic lunch comprised of mostly seafood dishes including a shrimp risotto, pasta and fish. I had an extra helping of risotto instead of the pasta.

After lunch Kaye sat in the cool while I explored the colourful town on the island. Colette was taking many of the women in the group to see lace making in one of the local shops – it is amazingly intricate and delicate work – I certainly wouldn’t have the patience for it. I bought Kaye a souvenir lace key ring and headed back to the cool of the restaurant.



I had brought my “Deuter” hydrating backpack along with me today – a good thing considering the intense heatwave that was hitting the islands. I re-filled the water bladder in the backpack and we walked back towards the boat for the ride back to St Marks Square.

Once back in the main part of town, Colette took us on a quick tour of the back streets of the town, mainly to help us find cool shady places that didn’t cost the earth to inhabit (unlike the waterside cafés, which I’ll mention below).

After the quick orientation tour, Colette left us near the edge of St Marks Square to spend the next three hours on our own – considering how much we had done already that morning, I’m surprised that we just didn’t head back to the hotel – but I guess some people would want to spend as much time as possible in Venice, just not us because it was stinking hot.

So Kaye and I walked off the main square into one of the side streets nearby, grabbed a couple of crushed ice fruit drinks and tried to find a cool shady spot. We eventually found a nice cool alley without much in the way of foot traffic, so we both plonked ourselves down in a dark corner and Kaye lay down for a nap to help get rid of her headache – she wasn’t coping well with the heat at all.

An hour or so later we were feeling a lot cooler but I wasn’t very comfortable sitting on the concrete – we decided to wait out the last 100 minutes or so before the ride home at one of the cafés on the waterfront. Well, I knew it was going to be expensive, but yikes – drinks were €8 including tips and ice cream was even more expensive – but if you didn’t buy something, the waiters would turf you out from under their precious umbrellas and into the hot sun, so we paid their extortive ‘shade tax’ and drank as slowly as we possibly could.

Despite drinking slowly, we had to buy yet more of the restaurant produce (ice cream this time) in order to stay shaded until the ride home, but even then our efforts were dashed when they started to dismantle the outdoor setting 30 minutes before our boat was due to leave – they were closing on us :(

We spent the last 30 or so minutes lingering under the awning of a souvenir shop, not actually stopping to buy anything this time. Colette turned up and we boarded the cruiser that would take us back to the bus. We saw a couple of huge ocean liners being guided into port by some tugboats, although it looked like the liners were towing the tugs. Perhaps the pilots had boarded the liners and were doing the guidance from the bridge of these bloody big boats :-)



Back at the hotel we had a brief break before our second included dinner – Kaye was less than impressed with the quality of the meals, I was just grateful we didn’t have to fend for ourselves for a change.

We collapsed shortly after dinner, exhausted by the day’s adventure.