Venice was fabulous with a capital F A B U L O U S and many !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Beautiful city, sunshine daily, fun and good company from my friend Ewa, great cheap food in restaurants where locals go, 40% of people on the street in some kind of costume (us too) and 5% in full impressive costume - real enchanting atmosphere and buzz. Probably best trip ever. It had everything and we loved boating from one place to another. Feet hurt from all the walking and clicked out over 1000 pics which I will be only be showing the best of, so don't worry. It was very European sophisticated unlike the drunken fat bastards on the streets of New Orleans Mardi Gras - in fact only after Carnival was finished did we see anyone drunk i.e. two men having trouble walking and we commented to eachother in Polish - they replied in Polish!
The wonderful hotel is the best I've been in - www.hotelsantelena.com. It's on the last connected island to the East of St Mark's Square and in the garden of Venice which is peaceful. You can take a Vaporetto (water bus) or walk 30 minutes along the waterway with parks on one side and just the most stunning view ahead of you of all the major Venice attractions. My god - when we turned the corner to see Venice laid out for us our hearts just leapt.
We overlooked the garden looking out to a canal and had two balconies. The room was modern and bright with high ceilings. We had cool touches like the wardrobe light coming on when you opened the door. We lounged on the sofa and felt we could have stayed happily for months there. The dining room was modern elegant with breakfast to die for - it was like breakfast at Prada! Service was top notch and when we returned from dinner they had washed up our cups and laid out the bath mat. First we thought the scary masks (there's no expression except a fixed serious one) had come to life!
Yesterday a water taxi (which is a much faster elegant wooden small boat) was provided courtesy of the glass factory on Murano and we were whizzed off there to see them making the glass and be talked through it. Then the manager took us up to the show room and warned us to be careful on the still in construction stairs but Ewa assured him we are quite acrobatic! He walked us round the Aladdin's cave of their pieces which was stunning and derserving to be classed as art and put in the Victoria & Albert. I wished I was wealthy (like the Texan lady in the shop who when looking for a piece in green was asked "Green like emerald?" and she replied laughing "Green like money!") and had the house to show off such sculptures and wonderful things. In the shop I bought a fabulous ring and earrings - all I could afford alas. I love glass art and Murano was full of it. Later we chanced upon a very nice shop where I got a lovely lime green leather brief style handbag for work. That was my Venice shopping. We window shopped and were discussing that Gucci bags were supposed to be cheaper if bought in Italy and then laughed at ourselves that this was like discussing whether the price of yachts fell.
Twas cold and not sure if it was the air con too but my sinuses are giving me hell. Good job I can sort them out lying in the sun by the Red Sea damn soon :-)
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