My weekend in Venice

The hotel Ala, well what can I say about this little hotel. Initially I chose it because it was very reasonable. . . and I am pretty good at searching out good value hotels. This is a Best Western Hotel, so I knew it would be clean. I didn't know however that it would be charming, have friendly, helpful staff (who didn't even mind when I locked myself out of my room at 6am (long story)), have lovely breakfast, comfy bed, immaculate cleanliness and wonderful cool rooms on a very hot weekend. I would recommend this hotel to anyone! and a reflection of the hotel . . .

. . . . and the birthday girl with her husband on the Rialto bridge. Thanks for coming with me Jen and Edward, It wasn't the same when you weren't there!

I love this about Venice, always glimpses of the canal in the background and other interesting buildings just peeking out!

and the large numbers of bars and restaurants wasn't all bad either!

I wondered why the buildings look in such a state of disrepair. Apparantly there is a very high salt content in the air, and any new plaster put up begins to disintegrate after a very few weeks. Sheets of stuff are not allowed as they have a tendancy to fall down onto unsuspecting tourists after a short time too... However it only adds to the charm of the place. . . .

The Rialto bridge was originally the only bridge across the Grand Canal. This incarnation was built in 1588. It is busy whatever time of day we visited, either with swarms of bargain hunters at the market and souvenir stalls, or at the canalside bars in the evening. Even a few middle-aged women with cameras were littering the place!!


The view ofver the Grand Canal can hardly have changed since 1588 apart from the Vaporetta stops I guess . . . and maybe the outboard engines would have been a little ahead of their time back then . . .

but from the back the view cannot have changed at all . . .
and back again at night! . . .

When we were on them the vaporettas hardly seemed to move, but here it looks like it is travelling at lightening speed!

This was found in a church near our hotel, It tickled me, what exactly do they think we British are likely to get up to in there???