Well firstly I feel I need to apologise for the lack of contact over the past 6 days, apparently the Italians don't support Internet Cafes too much, or that's what it felt like. Last time I wrote it was from my hostel in Venice. Six days later and I am in Dubrovnik, having had no sleep for 24hrs and waiting to check into the hostel (Vienna airport in not a comfortable place to sleep!!!).Venice was a beautiful place. We flew into Treviso Airport and then took a coach to the outskirts. This was easy and the transfer took about 1 hour. However I would recommend flying into Marco Polo instead as this is much closer and convenient. We hopped on our first Vaporetto (water bus). Most of the books recommend No. 1 but we took No. 82 as this took us straight to our hostel (Lagoon). Once you get through the industrial part of Venice the view becomes nothing short of spectacular despite the occasional scaffold cages supporting various domes, spires and the like (due to fact some of the islan
ds are sinking).We spent our first evening exploring the numerous alley ways surrounding Piazza San Marco munching on pizza slices, fresh fruit and coconut!!!. During our wanderings we found the Ponte di Rialto, one of only 3 bridges out of 400 which cross the grand canal and clearly the most amazing. We carried our wanderings late into the night and saw Venice light up and quickly understood why it is regarded as one of the most romantic places going.
The following day we woke to glorious sunshine and decided to make the most of the morning as we were taking a train in the afternoon to Verona. So we headed into Piazza San Marco early to avoid the crowds and went firstly into the Basilica di San Marco which to enter is free (you can then pay to reach other parts of the Basilica). However due to time constraints we just just stayed in the main area, and there were more than enough sculptures and paintings to leave us some what awestruck.
From here we went onto the the Torre dellÓrologio (the clock tower) and for 5 euros took the elevator to the top. At the top we could see for miles and the sight was spectacular. In every direction there were spires, towers and canals. The Torre provided two great things - firstly the most spectacular views over Piazza San Marco and the whole of Venice and secondly escape from the hundreds of pigeons that congregate in the middle of the Piazza (much to Nina's delight, as she is petrified of pigeons and felt relatively safe 80 foot in the air!?!)
With one eye on the clock (which in the Piazza has Bronze Mori which strikes the bell every hour on the hour) we headed back to the hostel to collect our luggage in time to get Vaparetto 82 to the station to hop on the Verona bound Milan train. This journey should have taken one and a half hours but actually took just over an hour (seriously our train network needs to check out the continental way of doing things.)
