Venice and two sea days

Our ship offers fabulous views on arrival

Palazzo Contarini del Bovolo

Some Murano glass

The four tetrarchs at the Doge's palace

The Bridge of Sighs viewed as we sailed out at Midnight

Lost in Venice

On the vaporetto leaving St Marks Square

Protesters about the big ships in Venice

Saturday 9th May.  Venice.
Our 6th floor cabin's height gave us a  fantastic view of the city, arriving shortly after dawn and leaving at midnight.

We disembarked at 9:30 planning to do a self guided tour around the main sights, but the crowds were so large, we abandoned that idea fairly quickly.  The entire area between the Rialto bridge and San Marco Square was choked with visitors, so we ventured into the other less densely populated areas eg San Polo, Santa Croce and Dorsoduro.  We followed our noses, going down narrow alleys and crossing bridges and generally getting pleasantly lost.
One of the unexpected highlights was finding St Pantalon church with its gorgeous painted ceiling.  It was cool and quiet in there and we sat there for some time admiring the artist's work.
Navigating around Venice is very challenging, even with a smart phone and a map but we were able to navigate successfully to Venice's Hard Rock Cafe and the Palazetta Contarini del Bovolo.( the house with the spiral staircase outside.) before the crowds got too thick. 
We stumbled into a rally against allowing big cruise ships into Venice.  Ships the size of ours aren't the problem (only 650 passengers) but there was one in port today carrying 3.5 thousand passengers, and the locals certainly object to this size ship.

We ventured back to St Marco's Square late in the afternoon in  the hope that the queues for the church were more manageable.  They weren't, so we decided to pull the pin and head back to the dock area.

We caught a Vaporetto from St Marcos at around 5pm, but had to get off at the railway station and it took us nearly an hour to reach the docks.  Just as we finally boarded at around 6pm the heavens opened. That clinched it.  We were not about to venture out again for anyone.

We have two sea days before arriving in Malta on Tuesday morning.  Sunday was Mother's Day and all the female passengers were given a long stemmed red rose at dinner.  The ship also put on a lovely brunch in the morning for the guests.

I seem to have been struck down with a cold today (Monday) and hope that I can medicate myself sufficiently to enjoy Malta tomorrow.