Yes that's the Italian Venice famous for it's flooded streets, Gondola's, Venetian Glass and maybe venetian blinds ? - but definitely not birds.
The St Edmund's Chapel and Chamber Choir (which Adie is in) were doing an end of school tour of Venice. So I took the opportunity to visit - not staying at the same place as the choir but attending the performances. They sang in 2 masses, firstly at Basilica San Marco in St Marks Square, that's the famous one, then in the Basilica San Antonio in Padua (which is another huge Basilica which holds the shrine of St Anthony). They also performed their own concert at the Miracoli Church in Venice. The singing was astonishingly good and appreciated with rapturous applause by both locals and attending parents !
It doesn't take long to get the hang of the Venetian transport system - an underground equivalent of water buses (Vaporettos) and we were staying on the Lido which is off the main island but only 10 minutes from St Marks by Vaporetto.
Other than for concerts, we avoided the main attractions around St Marks, which were heaving with tourists, but visited some fantastic islands on Murano (for glass) and Burano (for Lace and seafood). So the whole trip was thoroughly enjoyable. Venice is wildly expensive and seems to be suffering slightly from over-popularity with cruise ships. We saw 6 of the very large ships in dock at the same time (each holds 5,000 people !!!!) and a daily influx of an extra 30,000 people a day at peak times has an impact.
I was expecting no birds at all other than Pigeons . It wasn't quite this bad, as the saltmarshes seen around the various islands held a few
Little Egrets, Common Tern, Little Tern, Black Tern, Med Gulls, Yellow-legged Gulls. Even a few waders
Whimbrel, Lapwing, Black-winged Stilt and
Common Sandpiper. A
Peregrine was the only raptor and a handful of
Italian Sparrows and a
Hooded Crow being the remaining avian interest.
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| St Mark's in Venice (with scaffolding !) |
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| The Doge's Palace |
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| All main island street scenes |
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| Murano is famous for Venetian Glass |
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| Burano is famous for Lace, coloured houses and Hannah's insatiable appetite for Ice Creams |
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| Basilica San Antonio - Padua and Adie having finished being a chorister |
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