This morning I had booked a free group walking tour - the plan is you register beforehand and they tell you where to meet them, and then they take you to a neighbourhood of Venice where they take you off the tourist trail so that you can see the real side of Venice.
Today they took us to the Cannaregio neighbourhood, which is on the northern side of the Grand Canal. It is a quiet, unspoilt residential area where one-third of Venice's ever-shrinking population of 65,000 is said to live.
The tour was very good, and the guide spoke good English and managed the large group of about 30 people very well!
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| One of the many small canals |
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| Peter in front of the oldest bridge in Venice! |
After the tour we stopped off for a drink at one of the canal side cafes - we decided to try one of the local drinks called a Spritz - which is popular in Italy but originated in Venice - which is made with prosecco wine, sparkling water and a dash of Aperol which is a bitter liqueur.
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| Cheers - drinking my Spritz! |
Today the Vogalonga Regatta took place in Venice. It is a 30 km non competitive rowing race where entrants row, kayak or even gondolier the Grand Canal until they reach the Island of Burano in the lagoon and then back again. After our spritz we stood by one of the canals to see all the boats coming in - it was great to see and there was a lovely atmosphere with everyone cheering as the boats were coming in.
Because of the Regatta none of the Vaperetto were working so it meant quite a long walk back to the area where we were staying but we enjoyed wandering down the little lanes - we purposely got off the main walkways so we could enjoy the peace and discover lots of little lanes, bridges and churches (there are loads of churches!) stopping off for lunch at one of the little squares on the way.
This evening we went meandering through the streets again to find a nice wine bar and to have some cinchetti (Italian version of tapas). Nothing caught our fancy so we just kept walking until we found a lovely little square which had a bar with seating outside and we had our second spritz of the day. When we looked at our map we had walked quite a way - we were very surprised. By the time we walked back it was dusk and all the little streets looked the same but we managed to find our way, and we walked super quick when the heavens opened and it started raining AGAIN.
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