Horses for Doges and lido for tourists

Early in the morning David and I walked to St Marks square leaving Dylan and Ross comatose in the manner of all teens. We got in line for St Marks Basilica at 8.50 - near the front of line, it opened at 9.45. But at least we were in the shade, the lines in the hot sun later in the day were absolutely ridiculous, hence the early start. The place was amazing, every surface covered in mosaic, the ones on the walls and cupolas all gold leaf. Amazing sight.
We also saw the Pala D'oro - a large sort of picture with little rectangles of saints in SOLID gold frame inset with precious stones, a serious amount  of bling in anyones book. But best of all was the original horses stolen from Constantinople in 1200 and frozen-to-death and put on the front of St Marks, then nicked by Napoleon in 1797 but returned in 1815. They are almost 2000 yes 2000 years old and they are so real .

We rested in a little patch of shade on the balcony of St Marks and had the place to ourself for a few precious minutes

Clock tower - figures strike hour

If you buy a tourist ticket apparently you get 2 visits to the loos included. On the pavement there are lots of signs to WC this way but we never actually came across one until we were on the way back from this outing - and it was closed until 12.00pm. Presumably they don't need loos in Venice, but on the other hand they don't do like the French and wee anywhere they feel like it, so goodness knows whats going on.

In the late afternoon we all went to the Lido to have a look,  the trip was quicker than I expected. The beach is half a mile walk across the narrow strip that is the lido, cars buses and bikes a bit of a culture shock after nearly a week without them. The public beach is on the right in the photo near the odd white structure. The rest of the lido are pay beaches, no good if you only want a quick paddle in the Adriatic as we did.

Following this a meal at Hard Rock Venice which was quite frankly overpriced and deffo not as good as the ones in the U.S.A.

and finally another night time trip up the Grand Canal where we wangled the front seats on the boat again - lovely evening and a wonderful trip. But it nearly backfired as there was a thunderstorm and it began to rain lightly - but we made it home before it really rained.