Venice

Its always difficult to know where to start! so I'll begin with here & now. (actually it was 5 days ago) We've just woken from our second night in  Venice which I am loving.  I wasn't really looking forward to Venice with a great deal of anticipation as I've heard so many mixed reactions to it but after getting off the vaporetto (public water bus) I felt a real sense of  excitement and buzz. Perhaps it was just nerves - as after having Darren and Tony drive and navigate us without incident to Marco Polo airport; checking in the rental car (returned without a scratch!!) Perhaps unusual judging by the way the atttendant went over the car with a fine tooth comb); finding our way - with luggage- to the vaporetto stop - we girls somehow managed to get us on the wrong bus run.  Consequently, despite careful planning in selecting a hotel in close proximity to the vaporetto stop, we found ourselves trudging through Venice -over stairs and canals and through narrow alleys -  with suitcases on tow and stopping at every corner for the six of us to peer at a map in order to find the hotels.  (We've seen many such sights since.)
Our hotel room is incredibly small and the shower difficult to stand in without the curtain sticking- but the location is great and when we leave we'll have just a short trip to the canal stop.
Our first night we had dinner by the canal- great dinner/shocking service; but quite an experience with boats and gondolas whizzing past.  Yesterday was fantastic- firstly we discovered our hotel included breakfast so that was definitely a highlight as we woke up starving! (How can that be? Each day we seem to eat enough for a week!) AND... they had a Nespresso machine in the breakfast room!!!
Our first plan was to follow the "Venice Food Walk" written up on one of the guide books I had borrowed from the library -  so off we set for the markets.  They were as good as promised, with beautifully laid out fruit and vegetables of all types and even better was the amazing fish market. We ended up going back there each morning.  This first morning we were early so it was all pretty quiet but when we returned the next day it was a real hustle bustle of activity. We were too distracted by all the action and shops to do our food walk on the first day but went back on the second.  It was excellent and took us through parts of non-tourist Venice so we felt that we got a feel for the real thing.  We did a grand canal tour with excellent commentary and also a serenaded gondola tour.  We felt we had really struck it lucky with that.  There were 6 of us in Venice and when Jenny asked about booking a serenaded tour with piano accordion and vocal they said we would need 2 boats so we decided it was too expensive and settled for a cheaper option.  When we arrived it turned out we were in a group of gondolas, one of which had the accordion and singer so it was great.  We were able to take our own bubbles and it was dusk so very good.

You can see that Tony has adopted the Italian scarf. It was a lot of fun and overall we both loved Venice with all the activity without the traffic noise.  We did get the canal smell first thing in the morning but it seemed to disappate pretty quickly.
It was interesting though - as our final morning was Saturday and I think a couple of cruise ships arrived. It was crowded and unpleasant so we were pleased to be leaving.  I couldn't believe what a difference it was on the weekend.