Venice - the Grand Canal

The bells from St. Mark's woke me up on the hour, every hour, last night and then they peal for what feels like a million hours at dawn so I didn't sleep too well. We had breakfast and then packed everything up before leaving the cases in the hotel storage room and heading over to the Doge's Palace. It had some great paintings there, including a Titian fresco that he completed in three days. The parliament room is one of the largest rooms in Europe and houses the longest canvas painting in the whole world. I do love a good fact! There was a stupid bird in there though so we left pretty sharpish - knowing my luck it would fly into my face, even in a massive room.... We walked over to the Rialto bridge to do some shopping and then had lunch by the Grand Canal - this was the view from our table but again, the pigeons loved it by the water so Margey and Sarah were on constant bird watch. We bought our tickets to the airport before having a lovely drink by the water front and watched the police chase the men that sell the fake designer bags - I've drunk so much peach juice in the last four days, I'm surprised I haven't turned into one. Got our cases from the hotel and caught a water bus that took forever and caught the coach to Venice-Treviso airport. We're now at the gate, waiting for the plane to arrive - I'm hopefully going to sleep all the way home. Pargey better be on time to pick us up!