Tuesday 27th December

We are now in Venezia! We left Milano this morning, saying goodbye to our favorite staff members at the Enterprise Hotel, Jessica in the dining room and Anel on reception. We took a taxi to the central station - our taxi driver was a typical Milanese lady, tall, slender, beautiful, and dressed immaculately. Peter of course took the front seat and I was relegated to the back. It did seem quite strange to be being driven on the wrong side of the road, and for the steering wheel to be on the other side. Our driver drove like every other Italian - I think the movie "The Fast and the Furious" was obviously name in their honour. It may not have been quite as scary as a fast lap with Mark Skaife, but I think if Mrs Tander is looking for a female co-driver for next years Bathurst, we've found one!
Arriving at the central station, we bought our first class seats and then waited for the train to Venice. We boarded at 11.35am. The first class seats were great, plenty of room, and good service on board the train. Some lovely a views of the Alps and the countryside on the way. Although it stopped at a few stations, it was a very fast train - the fields and power poles seemed to be going by much more quickly than they do when the Honda heads down the Midlands Highway. We arrived at Venezia St Lucia station just after 2pm, and then got a taxi boat to San Marco - our hotel is right on the Grand Canal, a perfect location and a lovely hotel. Even better, we get a 20% discount when we eat in the hotels restaurant (which we did for dinner tonight). The guy at reception has given us 5 hours free wifi, so that should be more than enough for our six nights here. After checking into our room, we walked around the main piazza and surrounding streets, also getting some info on local tours, so we will organize a few tours tomorrow.
Included are a couple of photos - the required photo of gondolas, and a night time shot of the hotel exterior.
We still can't get over how everyone smokes - I think our clothes reek of smoke now. Peter is very excited at how dogs are allowed to go anywhere - they are taken into restaurants and cafes, there were a couple on our train today (yes, in first class!) and of course on the taxi boat too.