Day 28

We headed into Venice on the 9:30 am shuttle bus. Our driver was pretty crazy although not quite as crazy as the cabbie as he had a boxy van and was carrying twice as many people as the cab had. We arrived in Venice and he shooed us out of the car. We asked him if this was where he’d pick us up again later and he kind of grunted something that sounded like a yes.

Rialto bridge

We spent the next few hours wandering the streets of Venice, doing our best to get lost/find our way to the Rialto bridge. We didn’t do too badly in the end. After the Rialto bridge we made our way to St Mark’s Square. We stopped off for a drink at a lovely cafe in a little piazza before continuing our journey.

There were squillions of people in St Mark’s Square. Squillions. And it was hot. We decided that we didn’t want to wait in the heat to go into St Mark’s Basilica so we walked along the water front and found a shaded place to have lunch.

Venice waterfront from the water bus

We went to the information centre and found that the best way of transport around Venice was by the public transport system so we bought tickets that would last for 36 hours and then hopped on a water bus to Murano Island.

OH&S?

Murano Island was nice. We went to a glass making shopping and got to watch two guys make a vase and a horse out of the glass which was pretty cool. The room was stinking hot due to a massive furnace so the guys were just hanging out it shorts and T-shirts as they moulded the molten glass... We then had to walk through their show room to get out of course. I was terrified of breaking something.

We managed to get out unscathed (once we found the exit) and then grabbed a snack before adventuring on Murano. We wandered the streets and managed to get stuck at a few dead ends on our quest for another water bus stop before giving up and just coming back to the two we knew were there.

We caught what must have been the slowest ride ever back to Venice. We hadn’t realised how empty the water bus we caught to Murano was until we stopped at every single stop on the way back to pick up passengers heading into Venice. I think it took us an hour to get back in.

Peak hour in the Grand Canal

Once we arrived we noticed it was starting to get close to when the shuttle bus was booked to pick us up from the bus terminal so we caught a water bus up the Grand Canal. That was pretty cool although it got pretty squishy on board. The canal was very busy! I was surprised there weren’t any accidents with the number of boats and gondolas cruising around. Our bus driver/captain did have to reverse the engines a few times.

We landed safely and had about 15 minutes to kill so we just waited around where we had been dropped off this morning. We weren’t 100% sure if we were in the right place still, given the vagueness of the driver’s reply this morning but we weren’t sure where else to wait. Luckily some other people who had caught the bus in with us in the morning also showed up so we were somewhat reassured.

The shuttle arrived and took off back to the camping village. We insect repellented and then had a nice relaxing dinner at the restaurant after a long day of walking before going back and bumming out in the cabin for the rest of the night.