Tuesday 20th June

After our late night the previous day, we finally got motivated to go out  at 2.30pm, and bought our tickets for our day in Venice. 20 euros for an all day transport ticket, which we thought was great value,  as that included the bus journey into the city.

After the road bus trip, we caught the water bus to the Rialto bridge, which saved a lot of effort in the 36 degree heat.

The whole area was so busy with boats and gondolas on the water, and hundreds of people on the narrow walkways.

The atmosphere was bubbling with excitement as tourists and locals alike were drinking in this gorgeous day!

We decided to walk the quieter route to St. Marks square, to avoid the crowds, although actually this was more luck than judgement as it’s very difficult to follow a map in Venice!

The Doges Palace in St. Marks square was a fantastic sight, and surprisingly at this time of year there weren’t  too many people around to spoil the view.

St. Marks square lived up to all my expectations, although Jane was slightly disappointed that she didn’t find the Spencer area of St. Marks !

We sat and ate our sandwiches whilst watching all the traffic on the water coming and going.

Whilst we were having our “sarnies” K&V texted us to see if we would like to join them for afternoon tea at the Cafe Florian.  Kevin had mentioned in the morning that this was the oldest cafe in the world, and it opened on the 29th December 1720.  He said let’s throw caution to the wind whatever it costs.  When we found out it was 15 euros for a coffee and an extra 6 euros a head for the orchestra,  we soon  changed our minds!

We found a little cafe near the bridge of sighs where we got 3 coffees and a glass of wine for 18 euros, a sigh of relief you might say!

We took a little stroll along from St. Marks square, and the further we got away the quieter it got.  It was interesting to see that normal life does go on not far away from the centre, even in a tourist trap like Venice.

We found a park that was showing an exhibition of sculptures

We both found it very interesting, I’m not sure if I found it great because the subjects were nubile young ladies in swim suits, or it was the quality of the work…….. probably the latter!

After a lovely day with several boat trips, drinking in the ambience,  and loads of photo opportunities, we caught the boat back to the bus station for the journey back to the campsite and a well earned bowl of pasta!