Rose and Marco had arranged their regular cab driver, a friendly Italian lady (who arrived in a Mercedez-Benz !) to drop us to Milan railway station on the 1st October. The drive from Monza to the station took only about half an hour and soon we were on our way to Venice. The train ride, as usual in most European rail journeys, was very comfortable and just before we were about to reach Venice station, I discovered that our hotel was not really in Venice, but on the mainland, in Marghera, a few kilometres away. We quickly disembarked and after a bit of confusion, found our Hotel, the City of Art Venice Lloyd, though it was bang next door to the station. Maximilian, the receptionist on duty, was a very friendly fellow and soon gave us the low-down on how to get to Venice.
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The hotel in Marghera (Venice)
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We soon caught a bus and within 20 minutes or so, were in Venice! We spent most of the afternoon wandering around this amazing city, and wound up the day with a gondola ride. As it was quite expensive, (80 Euros), we managed to rope in two elderly Australian ladies to share the gondola with us. A gondola ride in Venice was one of Simmy's lifelong ambitions, and finally, on 1st October 2013, that desire was fulfilled! We caught a bus back to Marghera late in the evening, and after a frugal dinner of rice ( by now I was getting rather sick of pizzas and pastas) in a nearby joint run by Chinese immigrants, retired for the night.
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Along the Grand Canal in Venice
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| An elated Simmy in the gondola |
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| A romantic gondola ride |
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| On a bridge across one of the numerous canals |
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| The gondolier Fernando tries to sing for us |
The next day, 2nd October, was spent mostly visiting the two well-known islands Murano and Burano by boat. Murano is renowned for its exquisite glass-making industry (frightfully expensive though), while Burano specialises in lace-making. It was a really educative experience for us and we got to see both glass-blowing as well as lace-making. We returned to our hotel late in the evening and packed up for our trip to Florence the next morning.
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Glass-making in Murano
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A canal-cum-street in Burano
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| The colourful, picturesque houses in Burano |
