Day 18

Breakfast at the hotel today was, for me, toast and Nutella, croissant, chocolate pastry and a donut, and for mum, omelet, sausage, tomato, hash browns and a donut.  We then got back on the bus and headed to Verona.  The scenery on the way was spectacular, with the Alps in the background and castles, villages and vineyards in the foreground.

When we arrived in Verona, the bus had to stop and pay a 'Mafia tax' of around €300.  Once the bus dropped us off, Mayra took us on a walking tour past the Colosseum, which was more intact than the one in Rome, and onto Juliet's balcony and statue.  Apparently, if you rub her right breast it brings good luck.  There was a long line waiting to 'get good luck', so Mayra took some of us to her 'secret window' across the street, to see the balcony and statue from there.  Just as we were looking out the window, we caught the only other New Zealanders on our tour, 'breasthanded'.

We were then given a bit of free time to look around and have lunch.  We ended up at KFC, where I had a 'Squid Games Burger', and mum just had the basic Colonel Burger.  We saw a tour train and just had to take a photo of it.  Verona is very pretty, a pity we didn't have more time there.

After Verona we made our way to Venice, where we were dropped off at our hotel, Hotel Venezia, an old Italian hotel with tiny rooms, although it did have a bidet in the bathroom, which made a really good foot cleaner for mum.  We had a short time to freshen up before catching a tram to the Island of Venice.  We walked over a few bridges, looked around a park and made our way to the water taxis.  There, we were split into 3 groups.  We were in the first group, on a taxi called 'Poseidon's Adventure', which took us down the main canals.  We saw an Ambulance, Police and Fire boat, at different times.  When we got to San Marco, we looked around a little garden area while waiting for the other groups to arrive.  Mayra wasn't allowed to 'guide' on the Island of Venice, so she had to try and do it undercover. She explained how the 'Bridge of Sighs' got it's origins, and a lot of other information we needed to know, while on the tram.  She pointed out where things were before taking us to the Piazza San Marco, which was our meeting place. We had some more free time to look around before going on a gondola ride.

We were split into groups of 4 for our Gondola ride.  We went with a mother and daughter from Brazil, although the daughter, Giovanna, now lives and works in Sydney.  The mother could not speak English, so Giovanna had to translate everything.  The gondola ride was very peaceful, until we caught up to a few other gondolas.  One of them had paid for a singer, who was really good.  He sang the usual canal song, 'O Sole Mio' a few times.  He had a beautiful voice.

After the gondola ride we had some more free time to look around before meeting back at the Piazza.  A few groups got lost as it was like a maze there.  They had blocked off some of the bridges due to a concert.  Once we had all regrouped, we made our way to Ristorante Marciana for dinner.  I ordered the Margherita Pizza and mum had Fettuccini.  We were so busy talking that Mayra forgot the time and realised we only had 10 minutes to get back to the water taxis.  We rushed out of the restaurant (fortunately our meals had been prepaid) and walked briskly to the water taxis, which weren't very far away.  By this time the sun was setting, so got some nice evening photos as we left.  Once back to the mainland we hopped back on the tram to our hotel for the night.