Venice receives 19 million visitors in a year. They are all here tonight. It is also a well established fact that Venice is sinking into the sea. Clearly it is the collective weight of the tourists that is causing this problem. The temperature is 34 degrees and the humidity is oppressive.

For around 300AUD you can get a reasonable but tiny room in a three star hotel. The trick is finding it again after dinner. A maze of canals, alleys and footbridges make it simply irresponsible to venture more than 50 metres from your hotel without a well marked map, a compass, a cold drink and a sense of adventure.

Picturesque, romantic, and strangely magnetic, it is also the third most likely place on Earth to get your pickets pocked… or is that packets plucked…?

In 2 nights we walked, ate, visited a glass factory on nearby Murano Island, ate some more, and enjoyed the spectacle of 19 million others doing exactly the same.

Essentials for a Venetian sojourn… bread crumbs and a long piece of string.

We continue south towards Firenze (Florence) on the train tomorrow. Tuscany… the heart and soul of Italy.