Venice

After packing up our bags, we had a nice buffet breakfast in the hotel restaurant.  We saw the couple that we had met at the swimming pool yesterday.  The children had gone up to their hotel room to get changed for a swim.  Miss S wanted to go and say goodbye to them before we left the hotel.  We went to their room and exchanged addresses, so we could send them a postcard. They live in Birmingham, one of the places we will be stopping to visit family, so we could possibly meet up with them while we are there.

Suddenly, I looked at the time, and was alarmed to see it was later than i had realised. We were now going to have to really rush if we had any chance of getting to the train station before our train departed.  We got a taxi to the station, but despite the crazy speed at which the driver took us there, we missed our train by literally a minute.  It was horrible seeing it chugging out of the station a little way up the line, while we stood on the platform as it left without us.  

The ticket for that train was non-refundable and non-exchangeable, so that was a waste of money.  However, my philosophy in life, is to try not to worry about things I can't change and it had already been and gone, so there seemed little point dwelling on that.  I also value friendship over money, and while we had lost the price of a train ticket, we had made new friends, so that could only be a good thing.  We booked a new ticket, which, as it happened was leaving in fifteen minutes and was a much faster train, so we ended up arriving in Venice two hours earlier than we would have on the first train.

We had booked an apartment in Venice Mestre, which is the mainland part of Venice, where the majority of the population live, due to ease of travel, more employment opportunities and lack of flooding risk.

Once we had checked in we took a bus from Venice Mestre, across the Bridge of Freedom to Piazzale  Roma, which is as far as you can take a vehicle, and all the buses stop there.  From that point, you can only travel by foot or by boat.

We wandered around Venice, crossing many bridges over the water, looking at all the little shops and restaurants and beautiful old buildings on the edge of the canals.

We had dinner in one of those restaurants, overlooking the canal.  I had the most delicious spaghetti with mixed seafood - with mussels, clams, fish, calamari, shrimps and languistines.  We were seated next to a couple from Tasmania and got chatting during our meal.  They even played I spy with us when Miss S got a bit bored, waiting for the food to come!

We finished our meal with a gelato from a gelateria on the way back to the bus stop.