Dancing the tango

After  a great sleep in a very comfy bed, I spent some time looking for accommodation for our next stop, Salzburg, Austria.

We went down to the train station and booked a bus to Villach and a connecting train to Salzburg for the next day.

Then we took the bus to Venice, where we explored for a while, before taking a water taxi to the island of Murano, famous for glass-blowing.  We watched a glass blowing demonstration.  We saw a vase being made and then a small horse.  That was very impressive....it took only a few minutes for the whole horse to be created.

We bumped into a Chinese girl that we had met at the bus stop the day before.  I was quite surprised to bump into her again, considering the amount of people around.  We had a quick chat and then Miss  S and I took another water taxi to the next island along, Burano.

Burano is a fishing village, famous for it's lace-making and rows of brightly coloured houses....every house a different colour.  Another photo opportunity!

We had lunch here, and looked around the shops, bought a traditional Venetian cookie, and took lots of photos.  There were thunder clouds rumbling in, so we decided to get a boat back before the storm came.

Meandering through the back streets and narrow cobbled lanes, we found a place selling fresh fruit and smoothies.  I had a large cup of natural yoghurt, with muesli, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, pineapple, grapes and pomegranate. It was so delicious, and felt like, and actually was, the healthiest thing  I had eaten in ages.  Miss S was rather more tempted by the gelato on offer along the lane, so she had one of those.

Eventually, we came to Ponte di Rialto (Rialto Bridge) and stopped under the arch of the bridge at the top of the stairs, to take some photos and shelter from the light rain that was falling.

I was amazed to bump into the Chinese girl again - we had now seen her three times in two days.  It seemed incredible that we would have bumped into her a second time, but this third time we decided it must mean that we were meant to get to know each other a bit, so we swapped contact details. Her name was Joyce.  She was on holiday from Glasgow University where she was an international student.

Joyce introduced us to Giuseppe, an Italian man she had met at lunchtime.  Giuseppe was involved with a group of dancers who were dancing the tango that night, on the steps of La Salut - a fifteenth century church.  Joyce was going to watch and they invited us to go along too.

It was a surreal and thoroughly enjoyable evening, having tango dancing lessons and dancing the tango amongst a group of local Venetians, in the moonlight, on the steps of a six-century old church in Venice, Italy.

It was such a lovely end to our short visit to Venice, and we added Venice to our list of places that we would love to return to one day.