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Got up early to make it to breakfast and to watch us coming into the port of Venice which was very beautiful.

Venetian Pigeons...

Tav
2006-01-13 19:24:53

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last Italian experience in Sorrento I’m not sure why I’m still surprised by it all!!

Breakfast the following day was pretty much bread and water!!! Then we got onto a bus that took us to the Port where we caught a boat into Venice.

Until recently, Venice was sinking at a rate of 1 foot per 10 years

so some houses now have water entering the bottom levels of their homes…. Dutch engineers started blocking off the water from entering the city (any more water anyways) and they seemed to have fixed the problem at this stage.

Venice used to be a significant trading port and was very powerful. Now what once was a booming city now has only 40,000 people living here and it is now a tourist town.

The people of Venice were under invasion by the Moguls many years ago so they made the decision to relocate to the marsh area where they thought no one would come looking for them, they sunk poles and footings and ended up building over it in 811. Starting the base of the city they now have, however the Venice you see now was built from the 1400’s.

Went to a glass blowing display. They did a great job, very interesting and extremely talented. I bought a glass horse after I watched him make one - very cool!!

Spent the day walking around and going through the markets. We looked at St Mark’s Basilica and the San Marco Square with the famous Venetian Pigeons!! They were everywhere. People feed them so they

would climb all over them - not sure if those people have ever heard the term ‘bird lice’. Saw and walked over the Bridge of Sighs….

Stacey, Art, Elisa, Rohan, Jay and I had an amazing lunch together right on the canals. It was excellent and so was our waiter (always a first for Italy!!)

I ended up buying 2 Venetian masks as you never know when you could need a mask or two!! Hehe!! I was going to buy a lovely one from New Orleans and didn’t and had been looking for one ever since, it’s not as beautiful but will have to do! Deciding how to get them all the way back home to Australia without breaking them isn’t going to be easy and I wish I’d considered that before making my purchase!!!

Also bought some genuine fake handbags!! I’m sure I needed 5 more handbags to go with the 2 I bought when I was in Thailand last year that I have never used!!

Met back with the group and formed our group of 6 for the Gondola ride. Ended up being Art, Rohan, Stac, Elisa, Clint and I. Clint and I went together, he was to be my boat bitch!!

Hehe!! And I bought a bottle of wine to drink on the ride. It only went for about 45 minutes and our guy never shut up talking complete crap to the other gondola operators so it wasn’t exactly a relaxing experience and he kept rocking the boat on purpose.

We went out and had dinner than met back up with the group who’d been on an optional dinner that we’d chosen not to go on. Most of them were really drunk and had been doing crazy stuff. A couple of them threw up on the boat ride back and a few fell over and couldn’t get up… They were out of control…