Dateline: Venice Tuesday 19th April 2011

Warm and fine 24 degrees.

Venice, what an amazing place!    The mind boggles at the fact that it is founded on nothing more than wooden spikes driven into the mud.
We arrived at the railway station at 7:30pm the previous day and located our hotel which is a short walk from the station. Sadly they have still not installed a ramp from the railway concourse and once again we lug our suitcases down the steps. 


The first thing we notice is just how busy it is.  People everywhere and it hasn't reached the high season yet!    Below is the view from our hotel.

In the morning after breakfast beside the canal we purchase a Venice Card each and board the Water Bus for the Lido.  Some 50min later we arrive at the Santa Maria Elizabetta landing on Lido.  We follow the main road and arrive at the beach on the Adriatic Ocean.   It is in this area that the novel "Death in Venice" was set.
Mostly a resort area with a large number of hotels to cater for summer visitors the Lido is a long sandbar island and home to the annual Venice Film Festival.  
It is quite odd to see buses running along the roads but unlike the main islands of Venice it has no canals.

A Gondolier waiting for customers

Trivia:  The Vaporetto (water busses in Venice) have a recorded voice which announces the next stop.  A great idea however, the English version goes like this ... "Nexta stopa is (name of stop)".  Somehow next and stop have acquired an 'a' on the end , sounds pretty funny at first but you get used to it  :)

                                                                                  
                      What a great idea, park your baby for the day :)



We spend the rest of the day just wandering the streets to soak up the atmosphere.
Next:  A rather weird piece of art work.

  If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?