What can I say, 6 plane journeys and countless boat trips, but it was wonderful, if short.We arrived on Saturday afternoon, and got a water taxi to the hotel, hubby sat out the back of the boat (Miami Vice style), whilst I wedged myself inside the cabin to keep upright (and that was sitting down), too many bumps in the water (guess they do that specially for the tourists). The hotel was lovely, so peaceful and quiet, you would have thought you were the only people there.
We spent the first night wandering around the back streets just looking (me man was a bit hungover from previous afternoon's drinking with Davy in Aberdeen, that'll teach him!), we had a pizza (well, we were in Italy) and went to bed early, absolutely knackered, the stress of flying knocked me out, and I managed without any vallium, maybe I should have taken them!!
Got up the next morning to breakfast of fruit, chocolate croissant's, real coffee and bubbly. Thought as we were only there a few days, we'd better do the Tourist thing and went to St Mark's Square (on a water bus), where we fed the pigeons (well, me man fed the pigeons, they were a bit too friendly for me), looked round the Doge's Palace, thought about the Basillica, but by the time we got there the queue was so big we thought we would leave it for another day, then sat down at the horrendously expensive Caffe Florian (thanks for the warning Beverley), we had coffee (cup a bit too small for my liking), chocolate cake (well, looked more like a bloody chocolate swiss roll) and a beer, and that little lot cost about £20 plus another £8 for the orchestra playing in the background, but I suppose you had to do it (only once though).
We headed back and had drinks in the hotel's garden, all silver service and lots of snacks (a bit like the Carlsberg beer ads on telly, everything you want), ended up having dinner by the canal about 9pm, fish risotto with a little octopus on top, it was actually really nice, but I was quite glad we were eating outside and it was dark as I couldn't see the octopus, a bit like something from 'Alien'. Arrived back to our hotel room, to a perfectly turned down bed, poems and sweets on the bedside table and a little mat by the bed to stand on, joost luffley (there's that Carlsberg ad again).
Another day, more coffee, fruit, croissants, bubbly, and onto another water bus to St Marks Square, we thought we'd better just wait in the queue this time and only stood about 20 minutes, but it was worth it, the Basillica was beautiful, then onto the Campanille (big tall tower, where you can see the whole of Venice).
Had pasta and wine late in the afternoon and came back to the hotel for drinks before heading out for dinner in lovely little restaurant with big prices (having said that, pretty much all the food had big prices, you ended up getting used to it).
Tuesday was our last day and we took one last tour around on the water bus, and had a Gondola ride around the back waters (had to do that one too). Got a water taxi back to the airport, I actually sat up the back this time and quite enjoyed it.
And I can safely say Venice was great, and no, it didn't smell. Arrived Gatwick, found the Seafood bar, scoffed down a big plate of salmon and prawns before hopping on another plane upto Aberdeen and the Caledonian Hotel around 10pm, to order room service and have a big bubbly bath.
