Venice

The drive to Venice from Salzburg was an amazing trip through the Austrian and Italian Alps that was absolutely breathtaking. We took the easy way out and did the whole trip along the motorways, but the roads themselves are an engineering marvel.

Back in Perth they dig a ditch and put a lid on it and call it a tunnel. In Europe they have TUNNELS! Big round suckers that go right through the massive mountains. I can't imagine how long it would have taken to drive through Europe before the motorway system was built.

Of course, you have to pay for the privilege, but considering the amount of work that must go in to making and maintaining the roads, the 20 Euro toll seems almost reasonable (and I hate paying tolls!)

L-R: Anna, Luka, Me, Mikael, Mario and Mateo

We had booked three nights in a town just outside Venice called Mestre due to the major hassles trying to find parking in Venice (yes, it's a joke...)

The first night we went for a stroll around Mestre and had dinner at what turned out to be an Irish Pub! Won't make that mistake again. The next day we caught the train to Venice and using our slightly dodgey map and the more than slightly confusing Venetian signage, we found our way to the Rialto bridge.

As we were walking up to it, I looked up and saw a friend of mine from Sydney, Mario Pribicevic, pointing at me. We couldn't believe it. There must have been a million tourists in Venice that day and we bumped into each other in one of the busiest parts. I knew Mario and his family were in Europe and I had already caught up with Mario in Stuttgart to watch the World Cup game, but I had no idea he would be in Venice.

Mario and his family were only staying for a few hours, so we had some lunch together and after lunch went for a bit of a stroll.

Venice has hundreds and hundreds of bridges. Sue and I reckon we lugged Luka and his pram over every bloody one of them! If you're in a wheelchair or have trouble negotiating stairs, don't even think about going to Venice... unless you're a good swimmer, then maybe you could get around OK.

We headed to San Marco Square to see all the pigeons, but it was hard to find them amongst all the bloody tourists. We eventually found a few and Mario's boys Mateo and Mikael tried to feed them.

Larry O'Toole from Graffiti Publishing had suggested that we should catch a ferry to the islands and then catch the last one back to see the sun set over Venice. We headed out to Lido beach, apparently the place to be seen, but we couldn't see the attraction. Just another one of those stupid European beaches that's closed off to the public and full of deck chairs.

The ferry ride back though was pretty cool. Here's a couple of rather largish boats owned by people with slightly larger travel budgets than ours.

And here's Venice. It's not quite sunset, but it's as close as we could get.

I figured Venice would look pretty cool by night. Here's a shot of the Grande Canal from the Rialto Bridge.

We still had another day to go in Venice so we thought we'd try to find some of the less crowded parts of the city. We jumped on one of the ferries and let Luka entertain some of the women.

Most of the day we just strolled around, did some shopping and generally explored the place. It was fun trying to get away from the tourists and then having to find our way back as there are only a handful of places you can get across some of the canals.

As the sun was setting a gondola came under the bridge and it was interesting to watch how they manouvred the boats along the canals. This particular guy was pushing off along the wall with his foot.

It's thirsty work being a tourist. Just ask Luka!

You could take a thousand photos of Venice and they'd all be different and all be fascinating. It's a pretty amazing place, that's for sure.