Venice in bullet points

• Our 48 hours in Venice were fabulous!  It is one of those cities that I never tire of and it has a special place in my heart (together with San Francisco).
• The weather was cold and grey until Sunday afternoon when it cleared. Monday was sunny and milder.
• We enjoyed a few rides on the vaporetti (water buses) up and down the Grand Canal, the Giudecca Canal and the north side of the city; and of course lots of walking!
• We went up S.Giorgio Maggiore’s campanile to ooooh and ahhhh at the marvellous views of the city and to the Fenice theatre, once again risen from the ashes (yes it looks new but not in a Disneyland way; the amount of work and the attention to detail in rebuilding the theatre as it was, after the 1996 fire are simply astonishing).
• On Sunday evening we met Stefano (a eurowoof bear) and Nicola, a friend of his. We walked, and walked, and walked all over Venice trying to find one of their usual haunts that wasn’t closed on a Sunday. Finally we settled for spritzers and then pizzas near Campo S. Margherita. It was a fun evening: hopefully Adrian (london1952) didn’t feel too left out as much of the conversation was in Italian.
• Venice is an expensive place to visit.Public transport is dearer than London!! A trip on the vaporetto will set you back 6 euros but of course there’s no comparison between floating down the Grand Canal and being stuck on a bendy bus on Oxford Street. Venice residents pay much less than tourists and, apparently, get most services and goods at discounted prices too. Welcome to Venice: the fleecing republic!!
• Our hotel was outstanding. A 4 star in Cannaregio (a quiet area of town) with great rooms and buffet breakfast. And a very reasonable price of £70 a night (but the official rate for the same room varies from euros 150 to 450 in high season). The only drawback was that the room wasn’t ready when we got there at around 3 pm because the previous guest was in hospital and his wife hadn't checked out yet. Anyway, we left our bags and went for a long walk and the room was ready when we got back at 7 pm. Adrian “inspected” the room and in a Hyacinth voice declared: “Oh yes! This will do nicely, Richard”.
• On Saturday night we went to our favourite Venetian restaurant: La Zucca. We had some lovely food: pistachio and cauliflower spaghettini, radicchio and pumpkin lasagne, cabernet beef spezzatino with polenta, chocolate and chestnut roll, marron glace and brandy semifreddo.
• The following day we stopped at one of our favourite tourist traps: Caffe' Quadri in St. Mark’s Square. I had hot chocolate with whipped cream (which definitely wasn’t out of a can) and Adrian an orgasmic hot chocolate with Tia Maria (the latter was 15 euros but worth it).

• I took almost 800 pictures and will post a few (I’ll try to be restrained) on here in the following days.