Quick bulleted update
- Had a quick holiday in Venice. Good times: beautiful place; lots to see; palaces, churches and museums galore. Not many Canalettos though: there aren't that many in Venice and most of those are on loan to the National Gallery, where fortunately I'd already seen them.
- All holiday snaps
- Rather cold, thanks to mellow tellytubby for warning me. I recommend stout boots and thermal underwear
- Impressed by the system of the vaporetto water buses. They've got floating docks so they don't need to mess about with gangplanks. They just steer to the dock where the conductor secures one rope, and the driver guns the engine to pin the boat to the dock. Conductor slides back a gate, everyone charges on and off, then as he shuts the gate the driver reverses to give him some slack, he whips the rope off and the vaporetto zooms off. The driver has mirrors each side so they don't need to signal each other. Normally tying up a boat takes a while, but they do it in not much longer than a land bus takes to pull up.
- Few problems due to snow at Gatwick but I got off fairly lightly. First flight cancelled so I stayed another day, but that flight was only two hours late, and the London connections were fine.
- Bit rushed though as a I lost a day. Going up to parents place by train day after tomorrow, weather permitting. Did some last minute Xmas shopping today: handmade chocolates and single malt.
- In my last diary: "My sister's in a ballet. She rushes in, then she rushes out again", two poll responders said they didn't know why she does that. The answer of course, is that it's a rushin' [Russian] ballet.
- Merry Christmas one and all!
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