We drove straight to Venice, not the city itself, but all the same the outskirts were enough to master. So we stopped at the first campsite, and couldn't start. A wire had come loose in the ignition, but we couldn't confirm this until one hour later after being towed to a packed-in garage and charged 30€.
Next day: Venice. Surprisingly it did not smell as we had been warned but it was heaving with tourists weaving their way across the piazzas like ants crawling to their nest. We alighted from the vaporetto right in Piazza San Marco, at the tourist's hub. Queues for all of the monuments stretched away around corners and past mask stalls standing on the square. We did still manage to enjoy the intricately crafted facades of the Basilica, the red and white walls of the Palazzo Ducale and the elaborate gilt clock face of the Torre dell’Orologio before sneaking through the weathered arches into the maze of small streets and canals.
I think Ed took a photo on every bridge except the Rialto, which was another people train track swaying in procession over the Grand Canal, as we made our way into quieter streets and lesser known churches with walls plastered with the lesser known of Tintoretto's celebrated canvases.
After being ripped off with service charge and obligatory tip (plus giving the ice-cream man an extra euro with wrong change) we found the artist's resting place far out on the edge of the city. By this time we had exhausted our legs and feet so headed back to the van on the campsite with no loo-roll.
Venice in a day = done.
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