A day in Venice

View approaching Venice by Water Taxi
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Even though today is Good Friday, everything was open in Venice. We left the hotel at 8:15 and made our way on the bus to the water taxi terminal. We disembarked the taxi close to Saint Marco Square. Here we met our local guide Franko who was to take us on a tour through the old goverment house and then through Saint Marks cathederal. On our way to the square we stopped to view the bridge of Sigh's and here one of the tour group had an altercation with a local fruit and vegetable vendor transporting his goods, and it ended up with a number of the men in the group down on the ground in fist-a-cuffs with the guy. It was quite unsettling. Apparently he got a little close to one of the women in the group while pushing his cart and she pushed it away from her telling him to watch where he was going. This caused one of the crates on his cart to fall on the ground and break spilling the contents on the ground. He was demending that she pay for the damaged goods, lifting up the broken crate and threatning to throw it at her face. The fight was broken up and we moved away with the tour guide talking to some local police who really didn't care much about it.

St Marc's Square
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After that excitement we walked through the goverment building with amazing canvas paintings attached to the ceilings and guilded mouldings. We also walked through the prison which took us through the middle of the bridge of Sigh's. After this, we stood in line to enter Saint Mark's where we moved through quickly viewing the magnificent glass ceramic religious artworks contained within the walls of this cathederal. The tour group then moved on to a Venetion Glass house where we watched a glass blower sculpt a glass jug from a chunk of molten glass. After this we were taken to their showroom where we viewed the famous Venitian Glassware. Joe decided we should buy a decanter and set of 8 glasses and I decided on a large vase. These are being shipped home for "free". I then entered the jewellery room and a unique piece took my fancy. While we waited, the manager made a matching pair of earings for the necklace by cutting apart two pairs of existing earings. After our purchases were complete, we were left to amuse ourselves for the rest of the day in Venice by wandering the streets. As is expected, we got lost in the warren of bridges and alleys, but quickly found signs leading us back towards the square. We enjoyed some lunch and then later the obligatory gelato before meeting at 5pm with the tour leader for our return water taxi ride and bus ride back to our hotel. A tour dinner at the hotel is planned tonight and then an early turn in as we must be ready for breakfast tomorrow by 6:30am, leaving at 7:30am for Tuscany.

We're a tough bunch.. don't mess with us!!