Italy - Rome, Florence, Bologna, San Marino and Venice

[hangchoi]

Burano is famous for its colourful houses. Each house would pick a colour different from its neighbour and the governemnt subsidizes the painting of the house. This is due to an old story that once upon a time there was a plague in Burano, the residents painted their house in colour other than white to indicate that none of them were infected. Hence, you cannot see a white house here in Burano. And it gives us a beautiful scene now.

[hangchoi]

Another scene to look at is the leaning tower. Due to its soil structure, the tower of the church is leaning a bit to one side. So, not only Piza has a leaning tower in Italy.

However, you have to see closely in order to see it (better to compare with the wall line of the colourful house)

[hangchoi]

The third outside island we went to was Lido Island. This island is big, so does its ferry. We walked along the street and found quite a lot of tourist. But the point is, we did not find anything interesting to see, not much I should say.

And I felt like walking in Beverly Hills more than in Italy.

[hangchoi]

Having said that, the sunset at Lido was beautiful.....

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We bought a 24 hour pass for water bus. On the next day, our water-bus pass still have an hour to go, then we decided to take bus no. 1 for a tour. This is because route no. 1 travels through the grand canal of Venice island, so that we can have a view of the city along the canal.

Hence it is not necessary to pay 80 Euros for gondola, unless you really want to take a ride on gondola.

First picture is Ponte della Costituzione - the bridge linking Venice Island to the train station.
Second one is the Venice train station
Then, Rialto bridge

and we left the waterbus at Piazza San Marco

[hangchoi]

Ponte dei Sospiri......bridge connecting the palace and jail in the old days. I took a picture and found it look nicer if the picture is black and white.

Ohh....Gondola congestion in the third picture.

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Piazza San Marco....I had been there 11 years ago. A lot of people lining up for Basilica di San Marco.

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We had our tea at Caffe Florian, the first coffee house in the world. Beautifully decorated with expensive price, because your are drinking history. This cafe has over 300 years of history and their live music also has over 100 year history. You have to pay music fee (6 Euro each) in addition to the food/drink you ordered.

[hangchoi]

We had gelato everywhere during this trip. But for food, the outstanding items that we had to taste was spaghetti with squid sauce and risotto

We had the spaghetti with squid sauce in Burano and risotto in a Trattoria in Venice. We were so crazy that we walked through the menu of each Trattoria we came across. If there was not risotto in the menu, we skipped. 

Our crazy move paid out at last, we had the best risotto we had ever had.....yummy

[hangchoi]

On our last day in Venice, before we went to airport, we visited the Casa di Marco Polo, the home of Marco Polo. Then we did a bit shopping.

I had a Vin Brule at a stall too. That is a boiled red wine, usually for winter time but somehow I just found it.