December 2014

[iguana]

In December Emily and I took a short break to Venice as a Christmas present to each other. We had beautiful weather and because it was off-season, the whole place was virtually deserted.

We then had a few days at her mum's place, then I went back to my family for Christmas, and Emily joined me for my birthday and the rest of the year.

Gondolas, Doges, and brightly coloured buildings

Venice

We arrived into Marco Polo airport on Monday and caught the water-bus from the mainland to Venice itself, getting peeks of the city out of the front window. Soon we were on the island and had seen our first gondola easing along one of the deep turquoise canals.

While we were making our way in the general direction of where we thought our hotel might be - it is extremely easy to get completely lost on such a small island! - we stumbled across Libreria Acqua Alta, a fantastic old bookshop home to wall-to-wall shelves, book-filled gondolas, and not a shortage of cats. We bought a Venice gondola poster and, by coincidence as we were going to buy one online at home, a Chat Noir poster too.



We found the hotel, the beautiful Palazzo Vitturi, as light was beginning to fade, and dropped off our stuff to see Venice lit up in the evening darkness.

On Tuesday morning we had a "secret tour" of the Doge's Palace (very tour, much obligatory meme, wow), specifically the jail cells where prisoners such as Casanova were kept, as well as the staff quarters, which ranged from ornate to purely functional. There was also a room with some fantastic maps of Europe, Asia, and North America along with some giant globes.



We spent the afternoon exploring Venice more in the daylight, seeking out the Accademia bridge, Rialto bridge, a fruit and veg market boat, and a gondola repair shop. In the evening we took a water taxi along part of the grand canal, under Rialto bridge, to a restaurant where I had squid cooked in their ink, and Emily had a rather nice soup.

On Wednesday morning we went out before breakfast, while it was still dark, to see the Rialto market. It was a fantastic sight, with fruit and veg stalls everywhere, a strong smell of fresh fish (with swordfish on display from some stalls), and a traghetto at the side giving people on the other bank of the grand canal a quick way to get to the market.

After breakfast we made our way to a bus port and headed off to some of the other islands in the lagoon.

The first island was Murano, famous for its hand-blown glass products. Being off-season, we only found one place that was doing demonstrations, but that was enough to see the basic concept. The island, being nearest to the main island of Venice, felt quite similar.



We hopped back on the vaporetto and headed further out, and got off on the small island of Mazzorbo, which had not much more than a couple of brightly coloured houses, an allotment, and a bridge across to the next island, Burano. Before we crossed over we had our lunch on one of the peaceful banks, watching the occasional boat go past.

Burano itself is the most amazingly colourful little town, and with the sun shining the buildings looked like they were radiating colour. We stayed there, looking around for somewhere that would sell us some gelato, until the sun was low enough that most of the buildings were in shadow.



We caught another water bus to the island of Torcello, a large but sparse island that featured a brick-lined canal with one of Venice's two remaining sideless bridges, and the cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta. We finally found somewhere along the canal that sold gelato, meaning we'd have had gelato every day of our holiday. (And there's no such thing as bad gelato in Venice, either.)

By the time we got back to the main island of Venice, the sun had set, and we spent the evening wandering around more of Venice's hidden little passageways.

On our last day we were awake early, so decided to take a walk to St Mark's Square and we got there in time to see a beautiful sunrise out to sea. After breakfast and checkout, we visited the Arsenale, which was deserted despite not being too far off the main waterfront. We played Marco Polo in an empty square near the canal, then walked through the mostly residential areas and found ourselves on the other side of the island, walking over a metal footbridge bolted crudely to the exterior wall of the arsenal, with nothing but water below us. We got the water bus back from there, around the far side of the island, and back to Piazza San Marco.

We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around some more, trying to find a gondolier that would negotiate a price with us. Eventually we did, just as the daylight was waning, and we had a wonderful ride through some of the small canals without footpaths, and out into the bay just as the sun was setting! We couldn't have timed it better. Lastly we were taken underneath the Doge Palace's Bridge of Sighs before being dropped back off where we started.

We watched the remainder of the red sunset from the bay, then went to collect our bags from the hotel and catch our last water bus back to the airport. Over the last few days we'd tried to spot as many lions as possible, as they are a common symbol in Venice. We saw over 60 between us I think!



Ice skating at the Natural History Museum

The next day we had tickets to the ice rink at the Natural History Museum, and said our hellos to Dippy while we were waiting for our session to start. The rink itself was very picturesque, and we had a nice skate.

On the way home, we saw the Santamobile coming down my road, a sight I hadn't seen since I was much younger and living with my parents. It was a nice treat and made me feel very Christmassy!



Chocolate Log

I stayed at Emily's mum's until Christmas Eve, where we collected ivy from the nearby woods to decorate the house, and I made a chocolate roulard log, which turned out splendidly, if I do say so myself.



Pengwings

For my birthday, my family took me to London Zoo, where we saw the penguins being fed. Afterwards we went to the tiger pens to see how the young tiger cubs were doing. It took a while before they came out, but they were adorable when they did. One was practicing his predatory skills, and attempted to catch a small bird that had flown in. He looked just like Emily's cats when they were out stalking in the garden, and missed the bird by several metres.



2014

We spent the last few days of the year with each other at mine, and spend it visiting Petts Wood and watching TV in the warm. On New Years Eve we went up to London to play Dominion with friends, and watched the fireworks on TV.