Mia Scusi..... Ma Siamo a Venezia

One of my favourite places in the world is Venice.  I love everything old.  The buildings, the cobblestones, the plaster peeling off the hundreds year old brick walls, the tiny, narrow streets.  

I love the gondolas and the wooden water taxi boats.  I love that you can catch the taxi boats directly to your hotel's water entrance.  I love the winding maze that takes you from sestiere to sestiere (district to district).  

I love that you can get totally lost here and still find your way home!

Venice, unfortunately for the Venetians, has a HUGE tourist population and lost of visitors like to congregate around St Mark's Square and the sestiere of San Marco.  

So this time, I wanted to stay just slightly to the left of the tourist trap area.  We chose Liassidi Palace - on the recommendation of our Travel Agent extraordinaire - Lyn Tyson.  We have a room overlooking a busy canal, where boats are constantly whizzing past with all sorts of interesting cargo.  

That's our two balconies to the left of the water entrance.

And honestly..... I don't know why people don't open up more mask shops here in Venice, there clearly isn't enough!

There are fresh water fountains found all over the city - especially in the piazzas.  I loved that the water splash had made a heart shape! 

 The obligatory visit to St Mark's square with the pigeons.

Just a couple of buddies doing their own thing.  I know some people don't like pigeons, calling them rats with wings or rats of the sky, but I don't mind them and I often wonder if Bert's feathered friend, Bernice is somewhere amongst them all?

If you're looking for a gondola, I've found them. This was the hotel I stayed with on my last visit with my friend, Lu..... the hotel wasn't the best, but the company was fabulous!

I do so love the different products you can get in different countries around the world.  Here, I've found some liquorice flavoured toothpaste.  Surely that defeats the purpose?

And this little bottle of Gingerino!  To all my beautiful red headed friends, this one is for you!

I had held off from eating pizza since leaving Melbourne to save myself for the real thing.  So lunch on our first day in Venice was - pizza!

Whilst near the Rialto Bridge I watched these men throw and catch boxes onto this boat.  The man catching had a big bandaid over his eyebrow and I had to wonder if it was a work related injury.

 Just one of the many squares we came across during our wandering.

A couple of Gondoliers taking a bit of a break.

There's not a huge amount of space in Venice for garden, but we've been finding more and more on our walks through the different areas.  There seems to be a lot of roof top terraces with gardens.  This one below was a public garden you could walk through.

Who knew you'd find such a thing here?

 Me and me Jenny on the Ponte Accademia where all the padlocks cover the railings.

From our hotel all the way over the Ponte Accadamia and to the other side is a long walk and deserved a little liquid refreshment before the journey home.  We tried the local Venetian beer - Birra Venezia which was just what we felt like.

This is the view from our balcony.

Someone has tried to start the padlock trend on the little bridge near our hotel as well, but so far, it hasn't quite caught on.

Tonight we were sent by our concierge to a gorgeous little garden restaurant called Gardinetti 

and naturally pasta was not only on the menu, but on my mind!  I tried, as I always like to do - mainly because I love it, but also for my cousin, Chris' ongoing worldwide study of Spaghetti Carbonara.  Chrisso - she's a winner!

So tonight's entertainment came in the form of an older American couple.  The gentleman came across as very entitled and a bit of a wanker.  Upon asking the waiter if he had any good gin, the waiter said, "Please, let me check in the bar to see which gins we have."  He returned and said, "We have Gordon's and Hendrick's".  

Our friend replied, "oh, no, have you got anything better than that?"

Now, you're probably thinking what I was thinking..... 'why would the waiter go all the way into the bar to come back and only tell this guy 2 of the 20 varieties of gin they have on offer?'

The man was completely put out by this blow to his wants.  There were deep sighs and hands were thrown around.  It was obvious that he wasn't used to not getting what he wanted and he didn't handle it all that well.  He then got into a heated conversation with his wife, well we assume she was his wife, we racked our brains trying to work out who on Earth else would put up with this sort of behaviour!  She, after listening to all his bullshit spat out, "Stop it! Stop it! I know it!  I know it!"

We were absolutely glued to their conversation.  If they'd turned around only slightly they would have seen that they had an audience, but luckily for us, we had dinner and a terrible show thrown in for free.

The show continued on when their food arrived and he didn't want what he had ordered and when he tried to tell the stupid waiter who didn't talk American that he had no problem with the other server and he kept saying, "No comprendo.  No comprendo" to the waiter, who clearly compredo'ed.  

It turns out that he had a hearing aid that his wife told him to turn up because he was mishearing what the waiters were saying and then it was on..... 

I did take a photo of these two, but I decided that he, in particular didn't need anymore attention.....

Oh how I love dinner and a show!

 And then it was home to the hardest bed and flattest pillow I've ever slept on and I have to say I had the best sleep I think I've had since leaving home!

Then we woke up to this painting in our room!