Monday 2nd September - Venice, day 2

After a good nights' sleep, we were refreshed and ready for breakfast in the beautiful courtyard downstairs before we tackled the streets and canals of Venice again. It is forecast for 28 degrees today, promises to be another good one.

Onto the vaporetto, and off at Rialto to see the Rialto Bridge. One of only 4 bridges over the Grand Canal. The bridge is lined with small shops on both sides, selling souvenirs.

From the bridge, we wound our way through alleys and small streets, over bridges and minor canals and through squares. The souvenirs have not been very tempting, but I have had my eye on the murano glass charms for my Pandora bracelet. Today I finally chose one, and immediately added it to my bracelet. Boys, I may need another bracelet soon - there isn't much room on this one, how long is it till Christmas?! The back streets of Venice are lovely. There are small shops and eateries everywhere. You turn a corner, or come out of a lane to find yourself in another square. You could spend ages just wandering around and thoroughly enjoying it.

We finally made our way to St Mark's Square and over to the Doge's Palace. This is covered by the Museum Pass, so - jump the queue again, love it! This palace is huge, it was built, then refurbished and extended over the centuries. The first building on this site was from the 1200's, but little of it remains. The current building is much newer, it was started in 1442! Apart from being the residence for the Doge, the Palace also housed the law courts, the 'parliament ' of the time - Senate, and several different councils. It also leads to the Bridge of Sighs. Once convicted, prisoners were taken over the bridge to the prison next door, where there were no windows, so the light from the windows on the bridge was often the last light they would ever see, hence they would often 'sigh' as they walked through. Again, not permitted to take photos inside.

Back to St Mark's Square and we found a little cafe selling wraps and cold drinks for reasonable prices, and sat on the steps to eat - there aren't so many 'orange T shirt guards' around on a Monday! We managed to finish our lunch (along with heaps of other people) before being asked to move on.

We then had to decide between 2 campaniles (bell towers): St Mark's or St Giorgio Maggiore's. St Mark's was there in front of us, (with a queue we couldn't jump :( ) and St Giorgio's was one vaporetto stop away, on one of the other islands. Much of Errol's research had said that the view from St Giorgio was better, so we decided to go over there, and were not disappointed, it was superb. I am glad we did it that way - it gave us a view across all of Venice - again, photos tell the story.

Then we headed back for a rest, but decided to get off the vaporetto a couple of stops early, and wandered through the back streets, lanes, bridges and squares back to the hotel - this is the untold Venice, the delightfully quaint shops, cafes and restaurants.

Time to rest up, check emails (those boys just don't miss us at all :( ) and posts blogs. Decided we would wander back in the same general direction to find somewhere for dinner around 7. Stopped for a drink first as it was still so early - don't buy spirits in Venice, it is way too dear, whereas wine is very well priced. Found a Chinese restaurant that had heaps of different things on the menu, so decided to give it a go - great decision, the food was great, and reasonably priced.

We then walked on to the Rialto bridge before turning back and winding our way back to the hotel by about 9:30.

............just another day in paradise!!!