Day 39 (Sunday 15Dec19) Brisbane to Toowoomba

After deep and pleasant sleep in a large soft bed with soft pillows, we ventured down for a full breakfast in the Hotel. ( No disrespect to the many lovely places we stayed in, just Europeans seem to prefer firm beds and pillows). Breakfast didn’t disappoint. Bacon and it wasn’t crispy. Hopefully Cos can remember how to drive in Australia? 

Day 38 ( Saturday 14Dec19) in the the air

Melissa suffered poorly on our flight to Brisbane as she was still feeling somewhat unwell. Something in the first flight did not want to hang around. Sadly,  Emirates had fitted out the seating arrangement to get maximum seats, so our cabin experience was very cramped. Our Boeing 777-300ER was a little tired. It was clean but some of the equipment was faulty (sound system on Cos’ entertainment unit) or not working (like Melissa’s overhead light). 

Fortunately the plane arrived back in Brisbane on time. It is unlikely we would fly Emirates again if there was any chance of getting one of their Boeing 777s. Our experience in their Airbus A380 going to Europe was fantastic but this experience was terrible. 

We checked into the airport Pullman, and enjoyed for the first time in five weeks a soft bed with soft pillows. Marvellous!!

Day 37 ( Friday 13Dec19) Venice to Dubai then onto Brisbane.

Today we begin the long journey home. It provokes mixed feelings as you could imagine. We have enjoyed the trip, as we have experienced many countries, places, cultures, foods and most importantly people. This was what we came for, to personally re-charge by experiencing life somewhere else. So we go home re-charged, ready to take up our lives again, but slightly changed from the experience. 

Again, we found people are people, despite where they come from. We shouldn’t generalise people by place and culture. The nice part is, on the whole, the people we have met along the way have been nice and happy for us to be in their country. We have been lucky,it seems that English is the new universal language in Europe, so communicating has not been difficult as we expected. Younger Europeans are very multi-linguistic with languages and generally multi cultural in outlook. We as a country, could learn from them.

 The other observation (like 11 years ago) is the age of everything- buildings, roads, landmarks and history. Europeans really embrace their history. We saw very few skyscrapers while in Europe (and all in Barcelona when we saw them and then no taller generally than 15 storeys), also Europeans tend to repurpose their older buildings (and not knock them down so developers can get richer) as in Australia. 

As Australians, we were certainly at a disadvantage with the exchange rate with 1 Australian dollar buying 61Euro cents. So if you come to Europe in the near future (or any other part of the western world), save up your money as you will need it. Our dollar has been artificially depressed by Government fiscal policy to ensure our exports can find markets. The impact is imports (90% of what we buy) and travel becomes expensive. 

Today is another rainy day, which is a pity because we have the whole morning before we are picked up water taxi by noon. Our flight leaves at 3:25pm local time so we have time. Venice in the wet is challenging because the cobblestones get slippery and generate puddles. 

Despite the rain and cold, Cos ventured out Railto Bridge and back. Very quick.

After a last minute check, the owner of Palazzo Schiavoni, helped us out to our water taxi to the Airport. We highly recommend the Palazzo Schiavoni https://www.palazzoschiavoni.com/ as it is comfortable, in good location, reasonablely priced and staff are fantastic. 

Travel to the airport by taxi is expensive (120€) but convenient given the rain.

Once at the airport, we navigated security (who had all the personality and charm you would expect) and painlessly through customs to our gate. 

We boarded the flight, and which went smoothly arriving in Dubai on time.

 Sadly for us, we were bused 15 minutes to Terminal 3, underwent more security scans including pat downs, and had a 20 minute walk to our gate. Once at our gate, more checks and bag checks. Interesting. The security was however very polite and professional so can’t really complain. Also poor Melissa also ate something (on previous flight) that didn’t agree with her, so she was feeling very out well.

Day 36 (Thursday 12Dec19) Last full day in Venice

Today, as usual, we started with a breakfast generously provided by hotel. Venice is enjoying light rain, enough to make it unpleasant walking around the cobble stone streets so we decided to use the time to pack our bags. Yes, sadly, pack our bags.  This does seem as wasteful as outside it is cold and wet. Also, there is high tide today, so we need to wait until it goes down late morning before venturing out to visit San Marco Bastila anyway. On our way out late morning our hosts explain that the San Marco Basilicais quite low and prone to flooding and it is best to visit after 1pm, so we opt to enjoy coffee and sweets at a nearby cafe after most of our packing is complete. The cafe is the same one we visited yesterday for pizza. Today, our coffee wasn’t up to scratch and when we went to pay they requested cash not card. We explained that we paid successfully yesterday with card, they ignored us. Hmm. Not sure what happened, but we felt disappointed by the experience. 
 It continued to rain some more so we retreated back to our apartment, not before visiting a small art gallery 100 paces from our apartment. The artist works in watercolours, and yesterday Cos bought a small book of drawings from the shop next door. Enjoyable. We continued our retreat to our apartment, not before an English couple asked us for directions. Their hotel was only 150 metres away, so Cos led them there before returning to the apartment to wait out the worst of the rain.

After the worst of the rain had passed, we headed to San Marco Basilica. Free entry but 5€ each for the Museum, which is a bargain by European standards. Basilica is impressive being constructed of Croatian marble. It is the third church to be built on the site, and so is young at 1100 years old. Like most famous churches, it has been added to and refreshed over the centuries countless times. The Museum was amazing with many artifacts dating back to the 2nd century. A lot of artifacts are touchable if you wanted to try. Sadly, visitors were not allowed to take photos in the Museum or the Basilica, but could on the terraces. The Museum gave you access to upper sections of the Basilica, which provided a better view of the extensive religious paintings and mosaics on the ceiling. 

The Museum also gave access to Basilica terraces overlooking the square. The four horses on the Bastila are 2nd century Roman brought back from Constantinople. The Christian city of Constantinople was Venice’s rival. The city was sacked by crusaders after being encouraged by the Pope. Venice dutifully assisted the Pope by providing naval power and shipping the crusaders to Constantinople. The Rome based Pope wanted the power of Orthodox Christian Church (based in Constantinople) broken,  as it rivaled his claim to supreme leader of Christiandom. The result, was Venice got the two lions of St Mark and the 4 horses. Consequently Constantinople was weakened which allowed the rise of the Islamic Ottoman Turks and Venice. ( It is amazing what history facts are triggered when you visit museums. ) 

After enjoying the Museum we carefully proceeded down the very steep steps to ground level and back into the square. 

After sourcing some Euros for tomorrow’s water taxi ride (to the airport), we found late lunch (or early dinner 5pm) at another cafe we liked. Along the way ran into the English couple we helped earlier during the rain. 

The tide today was high but within what is normal, however on the 12th November 2019, (two days after we left for the cruise), the city had 1.87 metre tides which went about 94 centimetres into the building pictured (see picture below).  When we asked the shop owner, who was definitely Italian and probably a Venetian, about what it was like and that it must have been terrible. She just shrugged her shoulders and said ‘we live in Venice and deal with high tides all the time. We know when it will happen and just move averything up. 

Due to wet weather, and we have now seen everything in Venice we want to see this visit, we returned to the apartment at 6pm for a early night ready for travel tomorrow. 

Descriptionthe sacking of Constantinople 

DescriptioConstantinople

DescriptionConstantinople during Crusades. 

Day 35 (Wednesday 11Dec19) exploring Venice

Another glorious day in Venice. 

After magnificent breakfast, we enjoyed a video chat with Jacqueline. 

We then ventured out. Each day we explore a little more of Venice. 

We enquired at a station about getting to the Railto Bridge area. We showed the ticket seller our 24 hr pas from yesterday. She informed Cos where to leave from but our pass had expired half an hour ago (10am, the one we had bought at 11am yesterday) so we then proceeded to the station we believe we needed to find we had about 20 minutes left. Go figure. We took the water bus from San Marco up the Grand Canal past the Railto Bridge almost to the train station.

 The lanes and canals in this part of Venice tend to be bigger. Along the way to Jewish quarter we did some gift shopping.

The Jewish quarter is apparently the first Ghetto in Europe dating back to the fifteenth Century. There is only two ways in, over a bridge and a long covered lane (buildings over the top) with a distinct entrance. 

The ghetto is essentially a square surrounded by buildings which are surrounded by canals. 

The Nazis during World War Two inflicted horrors on the ghetto after Italy surrendered to the Allies in 1943. As result, apart from the typical terrors contributed to the Nazis such as shooting and torture, the occupants suffered deportation to the death camps in 1943 and 1944. 

The memorial (a plaqued wall with barbed wire and the marks of firing squads)  is sobering. When you realise that civilised and developed people can inflicted terrors, then it likely any country could with the right (or wrong) conditions. Lest we forget. 

Our next place we wanted to visit was the Liberia Acqua Alta book store ( http://libreriaacquaaltavenezia.myadj.it/v/libreriaacquaaltavenezia ). To get there we travelled into real Venice were the normal people live. It was a interesting walk where we saw church’s, squares, homes, shops and schools. 

It was obviously lunch as a lot of children around. We even saw a petrol station for boats, a hospital with water ambulances parked in a canal. 

We saw many grand and old churches and cathedrals as well. We visited the very beautiful Church of San Lazzaro Dei Mendicanti ( http://www.in-venice.com/things-to-see/san-lazzaro-dei-mendicanti-church/) which was a hospital as well. The church was built in 1601, on the site of a earlier church. It is well know for its amazing chorus. 

With many detours, we finally arrived at Liberia Acqua Alta book store. The store is known for its gondola, 5 cats (who live there) and stacked books used stairs. 
Expensive but interesting. Like most ground level buildings in Venice, they got a metre of water through their bookshop on the 12th November 2019. 
Being early afternoon we headed to our apartment nearby for some quick lunch and drop off purchases. Still hungry we decided to stop at cafe we enjoyed several nights back. One must be careful in Europe ordering food, as we got two very nice entrees instead of the planned one. Of course, a lot of cafes will offer you still or sparkling water for price (no free tap water). Another trick is they will put bread on your table which will probably cost when you get the bill. We stopped the bread but got the water. The result was two entrees or appetisers, two coffees, 1 bottled water and dessert was 53€ which sadly is cheap in Venice. Everything was divine so no real complaints. Europe is just different to Australia, so don’t expect them to play by Aussie rules, otherwise you will not enjoy the experience. 
After our late lunch, we did some more exploring some back lanes and canals. We got lucky, typically (November/ December 2019 prices) a gondola ride will cost 80€ for half an hour to 40 minutes. We got offered a 70€ ride which is a bargain. We raced back to apartment, collected the good camera and found our way back to get a ride. 
Our gondolier was a talented fellow who sang, chatted, and provided informative commentary while still skillfully navigating the narrow canals. He even pointed out a type of boat, young guys needed to impress the girls and go lapping in Venice. 
The ride was most enjoyable as we saw Venice from different angle, however it has probably been over romanticised by popular culture. Is it worth doing, absolutely at least once. 
After our ride, we proceeded into San Marco Square for a enjoyable explore, stroll and some hot wine. Our Gondolier had told us no Ventian will ever walk between the two columns with the winged lions found on San Marco Square as it brings bad fortune. He explained that during the Republic and times past, it was a place of public execution. The excuted often had their heads hung in display. Hmm not very pleasant. 

From what we saw tonight, a lot of people (tourist probably) will have bad luck in their immediate future. 
Finally after a eventful day we stopped for pizza at a little cafe not far from our apartment. We used the cafe for a meal back in November when first arrived in Europe, and it was great. Tonight we had two Italian beers, and shared a tasty pizza with cured meat, tomato sauce, mozzarella, and blue vein cheese. The cafe didn’t disappoint. 
Again, European dining rules are different to Australia, we had a cover charge of 4€ for dining in. We have seen this charge a few times in last month (Barcelona, Paris and Venice) and it is, what it is, unfortunately.  We noticed yesterday on Murano where we bought a gelato, there was one price for takeaway and a additional 50c to eat it at a table.