More views of Venice

Bridge number 384 :-)

Tourists

Lots of masks - some costing as much at €1500!!

Isola di Burano

The island of Burano is famous for lacemaking..... but we didn't bother with that ;-)
Check out the colourful canal pics - amazingly this island only has two canals!

Isola di Torchello

The Isola di Torchello has a church which is the oldest building in the Laguna di Venezia. We didn't bother taking a picture of that so you'll have to put up with more pictures of us.....

Isola di Murano

Today we took the ferry to some of the outlying islands in the Laguna di Venezia. First stop was Murano, home of the famous Murano glass. This is a very pretty island with lots of brightly painted houses.

The Canal Grande di Murano

A sculpture made from Murano glass

Ponte di Rialto

Where's Em?

There she is!!

Venice from the Air

You can take a helicopter flight over Venice to see the sights from the air - we decided to climb a tower instead. These pictures are from the top of Campo San Giorgio on the island of Bacino di San Marco.

Looking North with Piazza San Marco in the middle

Check out those tourists - even at midnight this area is busy!!

Looking East - Kiki is parked as far as you can see in this picture.

There's the leaning tower again...

The Bassilica

Gondola's

A nice picture of the gondola's - unfortunately Venice is so busy that people just seem to get in the way ;-)

The Doge's Palace

Em's parents arrived today so we decided to visit Piazza di San Marco.

Piazza di San Marco from the water showing the Campanile on the left and the Doge's Palace on the right.

The palace steps where the Doge received his people

The entrance stairway was designed to impress visiting foriegn dignitaries. This picture really doesn't do it justice.... unfortunatley after this point camera's are banned :-(

A wet day in Venice

We woke up this morning to a grey day with rain forecast - sure enough as we arrived in Venice it started to rain and continued to do so for most of the day.

The Campaneile of San Giorgio dei Greci - yes, it really is this tilted!!

More mayhem on the canals as gondolas and taxis ply their trade.

Door to door deliveries - Venice style

Venice has over 150 canals and 400 bridges!

Sunset over Venice

First impressions of Venice

Yesterday we drove around the Laguna di Venezia from Jesolo to Venice only to discover that the Airee di Sosta at the start of the causeway that was supposed to be €4 for 24hrs was actually scruffy carpark that was now charging €20! Fortunately, when we were exploring around Jesolo, we had spotted a possible (free) parking place at Punta Sabbioni. Unfortunately this meant that we had to retrace our route back to Jesolo and then onwards to the end of the penninsula. All was not lost as we spent a sunny afternoon on the beach and a quiet evening in the company of 10 or more motorhomes in the free carpark.

Today we cycled from the carpark to Punta Sabbioni from where we took the ferry to Venice.

Em on Bacini di San Marco with Piazza San Marco in the background.

Mayhem on the water - if you go for a gondola ride check your travel insurance.... it all looked scary to us!

High tide in Piazza San Marco - the Lemmings cross the bridge

The Canal Grande

The Med at Last!

This evening we've just arrived at the Med - we're staying for a few days on a campsite in Lido di Jesolo which is slightly to the north of Venezia.

Em tests the water temperature - still warm apparently :-)

Vicenza

The Rua - a large structure (15m tall) which was carried around the town on Corpus Christie.

Some of the buildings attributed to the architect Palladio

Water divining - well I had to start somewhere......

Verona - day 2

The Duomo - Verona's Cathedral

Castelvecchio

Em on the castle battlements

The Arena, the third largest in the world. We were rather disapponted by this - the outside was marred by scaffolding and lighting rigs. The inside... well this could've been an old football stadium - loads of nasty metal seats... and they charge €6 entry!!

Torre dei Lambert

The bell tower has nearly 300 steps to reach the top - we took the lift which went 2/3 of the way up - just a few more stairs to go!

The "hour" bell at the top

09:29:59: Em looks down towards the smaller bells below (a notice in the lift said there's a chime on the hour and half-hour)
09:30:00: Oops it's the big bell (inches above our heads) that chimes!!!

Ears still bleeding we pose for the official press photo's