Venice and Home

Well we are finally home. Venice was lovely. Arriving by ship we sailed straight through the centre of town, passing St Mark’s Square and all the bridges and a myriad of boats including Tatoosh a 301-foot (92 m) private yacht owned by Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen complete with helicopter, sailboat and jet skis on deck. It is amazing that the whole place isn’t flooded regularly it is so flat.

We went ashore and visited the Doge’s Palace, residence of the Doge and Venice’s seat of government. It is very ornate with the walls and ceilings painted by Tintoretto and Veronese similar to the works of Michelangelo at the Vatican. We were to visit St Mark’s Bascilica which we could view from the outside but there was a high tide and the entrance was blocked.

Crossing the many bridges around St Mark Square we came across the Bridge of Sighs, a 17th century covered stone bridge that is one of Venice’s most photographed landmarks. The bridge links the Doges Palace with the old prison dungeons (which we visited). It says it is so called as when the prisoners passed over the bridge on the way to the dungeons they sighed as they saw the sun for the last time.  The higher bridge in the 1st photo is the Bridge of Sighs.  This photo is what the prisoners would see as they walked across.

We did some shopping and bought some porcelain facemasks that Venice is famous for and some Murano glassware.

We returned at night to do an evening gondola ride. It was very romantic. We got in the very ornate sleek black gondola with red velvet seats and were joined by the oarsman and a piano accordion player and singer. Only one boat on each tour has the singer and we were lucky it was our boat. We were given a bottle of champagne and set off on a 40 minute cruise through the canals crossed by scores of bridges and past balconied waterfront buildings while being serenaded along the way. It was a lovely way to end our travels.

On Monday we arrived at Venice airport to hear flights to London had again been cancelled. Although most of the flights were cancelled, against our flight number it read "Volcanic Ash". We weren’t sure if we were going or not. Flights all over northern Europe were showing as cancelled and ours was delayed twice. I didn’t have much hope of flying when suddenly our flight was called so we boarded. They said they saw a window of opportunity so took off. We found when we landed the airport had only opened 10 minutes prior. We flew out at 11.00pm and later heard the airport was again closed at midnight so we were very lucky. We came home via Singapore and were very pleased to arrive in Brisbane Wednesday morning and have Yvette pick us up.

We had a wonderful holiday with many hilights and people and places we will remember forever ( or until alzheimer’s sets in).