"Isn't that your bag, Jane?"
"That one, on the tarmac. God, it really is your bag!"
"That's not my bag. That is my bag!"
And so began our week long holiday to Italy and Croatia - watching the passengers boarding our flight, walking past Jane's rucksack sitting forlornly on the tarmac of Stansted Airport. Luckily she pointed out to the ground crew "I can assure you, I packed that bag myself..."
We got into Venice quite late that evening, and our first of the city was from a vaporetto zipping down the Grand Canal to our hotel, Casa Linger, a stone's throw from Piazza San Marco, and we were up early the next day to begin our discovery of Venezia. Weather was great, but I spent the whole day hiding from the bright sunlight since I didn't have any sunnies to shield my poor mole-like eyes. When I finally found a pair that Christian, Jane and Becky agreed looked good, I paid my cash, and put them on only to have all three of them say "those aren't the ones you bought!" and fall about laughing. A small silvery half-moon was smack in the middle and had been previously hidden from view by the price label. How they laughed.
We wandered around the pigeon-infested Piazza San Marco, climbing the campanile to enjoy the view and take photos, and we marvelled at the beautiful basilica of St Mark, whose interior is completely sheathed in golden mosaics of saints and scenes from heaven and purgatory. Larvely. Back in the piazza, we saw a poor old pigeon looking half dead on the floor, with people barely avoiding the poor thing - until some evil git came along with his wheely luggage and practically ran the poor little bugger over! At this point, St Jane of the Pigeons shouted Oi! and drew attention to the blighter, who managed to look a little shame-faced...
Jane's attitude was much changed later, when minding her own business in a picturesque little campo, got mobbed by more pigeons trying to get at the ice cream cornet fragments that Christian was sneakily scattering around her feet. She didn't like them so much then.
No visit to Venice would be complete without a trip down the canals on a gondola. However, it took us a damn long time to find a gondolier that suited our tastes - we wanted someone who was reasonably fit, no fat old mingers in our boat! This took a long time, but we were eventually satisfied with our heavily-accented chap, until we realised he was sending text messages on his mobile phone while delivering his tourist spiel from the back of the gondola! But to be fair, he did come to the rescue when I foolishly dropped Becky's €10 in the dingy waters of the Grand Canal.
Venice is a beautiful place - every little street is a scene worthy of a postcard, with a tiny bridge over a limpid canal; I took photo after photo of stunning buildings, dilapidated houses, clear reflections and blue skies. Then I deleted them all by mistake in Croatia (doh!). Luckily I managed to take some more when we got back from Croatia, before our day trip to Verona, and just before flying back to the UK.
While there, we sat in the sunshine, drinking in little cafés in quiet squares, just wandering and taking in the sights, like the Accademia Bridge, the Rialto Bridge, and the Bridge of Sighs. Of course every night we got back to our hotel knackered and footsore, but that's culture for you, innit?