Breakfast was included but wasn’t the greatest – still there were citrus flavoured croissants and coffee for me so I cant complain. Then pushed our way against the crowds to get to the start of our walking tour. What should have taken 10 mins and an excellent tour guide. San Marco Square was flooded by the high tide so we went back to front. What was supposed to be 2 hours took 3 hours but it was very interesting and I would recommend it to others. We went thru some of the back streets and saw Marco Polo’s house – bit of a different story of his life here than I heard in China where he spend most of his time. In China they say he was a prisoner of Kublai Khan and although he was free to travel he was not free to return back to Italy for 20-30 years and that most of the stories he wrote were possibly made up. We ended up back at San Marco Square and fought our way into the Basilica san Marco where evidently St Mark is buried. It was built in the 11th century to house St Mark’s body which has been ‘stolen’ from Alexandria in the 8th century by 2 Venetian merchants. Then up some very steep narrow stairs to get to a great view overlooking the Square and back down to the Grand Canal. It was here that I lost the others for a while as they said let’s go and they were in front of me so I presumed when I lost sight of them I would see them downstairs but Nancy did one of her now famous stopping acts and I waited downstairs for 30mins whilst they were upstairs looking for me.
Then we found a restaurant not far from our hotel and had a very average pizza. It made me remember that I don’t really like Italian food in Italy as it is very bland. Then we changed and wore our masks for the first time and went to the theatre production – a meal was also included. It was ok – Andrew slept for the first 20 minutes. For the price I probably wouldn’t recommend it and definitely not the dinner which was quite possibly the worst dinner I have ever had and reminded me again of my big coach trip thru Europe 6-7 years ago and the dreadful meals we had. It was made better by finding a gelato place soon after we left and I had the most delicious meringue flavor. Took the long way back to the hotel via narrow streets. I was map reader and had no idea where we ever were exactly but just knew we were vaguely heading in the right direction. Nancy found about 1000 of the same shops to pop into as she was looking for more masks to decorate our apartment – yippee – fortunately I think we aren’t allowed to hang things on the wall. She is a great shopper and I think her and Diane would shop well together as they both have good taste but with an eye for a bargain and can do it all day without stopping.