Venice

Alrighty, arrived at Venezia aboad a train that truly let us know we had arrived in Italy, yep they really do like to talk to each other while at other ends of the train Hoped off the train at the main station and hopped on a city bus to head to the camp ground that Chris and Jo had suggested to us. Dropped the bags off and then caught the next bus back to where we'd just come from... Managed to arrive in one piece, just had to push a few teeth back in, was probably the most bumpy bus ride we've ever been on

Wandered around Venice from 5:30 until 9:30 was really nice to see the light reducing and the lights coming on. The streets (can you really call them that) were an absolute maze but with a map in hand we arrived where we had planned to end up, San Marco, or tourist central. People were feeding pigeons in the piazza, for 1€ you could by feed and have pigeons acost you and eat out of your hand... weird. Wandered around just following our noses, outside the Prade shop there were these guys with big sheets layed out with heaps of rip off bags laid out, Jo was smitten (with the bags) and decided to do some 'African business' and bought a 45€ bag for 25.

So wandering around with a camera and a fake Prada bag stuffed with newspaper we saw the rest of the sights until we caught the bus back at around 10pm.

Venice is a strange place, can't really see it exsisting without tourism. If people didn't come to see a city built on water it would have ceased to exist years ago. The city itself is having rather a hard time of it, some parts are sinking at up to 10cm year! The place seems to be being raped of all it can with no money being put back into anything that doesn't have an immediate monetary return. It's a shame because all the buildings are really cool, but most are ready to fall down. For the number of tourists in the place it seems that there must be money available to improve things... I mean the vaporetto (Water buses) seem to be last upgraded in 1980... (this was obviously the last time somene arrived selling music to, as the soundtrack to Venice would definetly have only been released on cassette )

All and all though its a nice place to visit, and glad that we went.

Ciao !