This was the bridge holiday at Lake Garda in Italy, but the only part of it that I thought worth repeating was our outing to Venice. The worst part of this holiday is that I got the day wrong - iour leaving date had been changed - but nobody had verbally told me and I didn't check the tickets when they arrived. So when I came home from work on a Wednesday, I had a phone call from Pauline asking me where I was - and that the rest of them were in Italy. I thought she was joking. So I had to travel out two days later at my own expense and on my own - and find my own way to the resort. My roommate and partner was Barbara - whom I had got along well with in Sorrento.

Monday was our big trip to Venice. Barbara had gone before - but many years ago, and Rene and I had never been. Zaib came too, and Pat, but not Janet - who spent the day going with Pauline to have her wrist x-rayed and put in plaster. We had our breakfast at 7 on days when we were going out early - and perhaps 20 of us were there eager and ready for the bus when it came to pick us up at 7.30. Our guide looked a miserable so and so, and hardly spoke when we got on the bus. Barbara very cleverly chose us the seat at the very front so we had a good view, and didn't have the swerve that so often comes with the back of a bus. We picked people up from several different hotels and then got going down the lake road, and then back onto the autostrada which took us all the way to Venice.

Our guide whose name was Eleanor, first apologised for not being up to her usual self.  She had been taking a tour all day the day before and then had gone to a party that had lasted most of the night, and she was not very alert. But she then started doing her job, and she was absolutely marvellous. She talked for most of the two hour journey to Venice - telling little stories about houses and castles that we saw along the road. And she gave us an idea of what we would be doing and seeing in Venice. She repeated it perhaps three times in the day, in slightly different ways, which was very valuable in helping those of us with faulty memories, remember at least some of what we saw.

She told how Venice was built on hundreds of small islands, and dated from the time when Northern Italy was being sacked by invaders. The people went to the little islands to hide out - and then just stayed and formed them into one big city by using the water between the islands as their roads. Venice was the centre of the trade route and Marco Polo had it as his base - and because of all the trading, it became very famous and rich.

But now- the main thing it has to offer is tourism, and it is the most visited city in the world. But the City itself is dying - about 60% of the town residences are left empty and are decaying. Nobody can afford to make it the beautiful place it was - so it seems that it will just continue to decay until it falls apart.

But I am going ahead of my story - we are still on the route along the Northern Italian autostrada.

Northern Italy is a very rich and fertile area, and as such has been much fought over. It only became part of modern Italy in fairly recent times - and the Southern part is much poorer and depends on the North for survival, but of course the power and the Pope are in the South, so there is always a feeling of a divided country like a lot of other places I can think of. We drove by orchards and vineyards and fields rich with produce. We drove by modern industrial cities. But you didn't see evidence of poverty as you do so often in Mediterranean countries. No donkeys with panniers helping old women dressed in black to gather sticks for the fire, or that sort of thing. It seemed a long trip - but Eleanor kept up her commentary and it was all very interesting. She told us our bus was yellow and white which were the Pope's colors - so we were all under the protection of the Pope.

When we arrived in Venice, we had to transfer to a water-bus - since no vehicles are allowed in Venice itself - except on one island, and on that, busses of our size were not allowed. And we were told to use the toilet facilities, which were relatively good, and it would not be easy to find toilets just anywhere when we were actually in Venice. So we did as we were told, but instead or "spending a penny" as the euphemism goes in England for paying to use the toilet we had to spend 200 lire, which sounds like a lot until you realise that there 10,000 lire are about £3, which would mean 1,000 lire would be 30 pence} and 100 lire therefore 3 p - so in effect we were being charged 6 pence to spend a penny. There was a long line of people waiting for the privilege, but it went quite quickly as there were several blocks of toilets, some for men and women and some for women only. A girl collected our coins outside the line, put them in her plastic bag and already had five plastic bags full of coins, and directed us which block to go to. Ours were relatively clean, and at least better than the hole in the floor that is a fairly typical Mediterranean toilet.

So having done our duty, we met our guide again by the souvenir stall. She had a red handkerchief tied to a car aerial, which she then raised so we would know which group to get into. Each guide had her own symbol - an umbrella or a different coloured hanky on a stick etc. One of our party, also called Barbara, and her partner were late getting back, and we all said, "typical", because it was Barbara's table at bridge that was always last getting the score down and the hands played. And later in the afternoon, Barbara would do her "typical" again.

But once we were all reassembled we followed our red-flagged leader to the quite large closed-in boat that then transported us into Venice proper. It took about 1 0 minutes, and we went by the ghetto where the Jews had been forced to live in earlier days - they were emancipated by Napoleon. And we went by various important castles and islands such as Murano - where the glass I had fancied comes from. I don't remember the details now - but all through the trip on the boat, Eleanor was telling us all again, what we were seeing, and the history of each place.

When we arrived in St Mark's Square - we spent some time looking at the famous buildings there - the church of St Mark - the Campanile - the museum which had been a prison which only one man had escaped from - Casanova. We were told how expensive it would be to eat in the little sidewalk cafes which also had live music provided by three very posh pieces - a grand piano, a violin and cello, or some such combination of men dressed in evening suits. We were told far better to go into the back streets and get a pizza or sandwich from a roadside cafe.

But first we walked about half a mile down the main road - and then those of us who had chosen to do so, went on a gondola ride. We again lined up and were put into groups of 6 - Eleanor joked about it - Six in Italian is Sex, so we were going to have Sex on a Gondola. And when we went under the Bridge of Sighs it was customary to kiss the person next to you - but since we were all old fat women, we decided to blow kisses to our young handsome gondolier - Marco. We asked him to sing, but he wasn't interested. It was a bit unnerving getting into the gondola, and Barbara was very worried that she'd feel sick in it. The sea looked very choppy. It wasn't yet raining by that time, but it was looking threatening. Eleanor had joked that she would take her umbrella with her because that usually guaranteed that it wouldn't rain.

But back to the gondola - they are all painted black - for some reason - something to do with mourning, but I can't quite remember who for - but all gondolas in Venice are black. They are rather narrow - about like a small rowing boat - and the shape of the boat means that the main area for passengers is to one side, and the gondolier stands on the long and narrow back with his pole. But obviously the weight had to be balanced right. Barbara and another lady who were the biggest were seated together towards the back, then two other medium sized ladies and I were given seats in the middle facing each other, and Rene, who is quite small was put at the front of the boat, and told to sit straight. Then Marco took us off, down one canal after the other - very slowly, stopping for cargo boats to go by, sometimes backing, going under dozens of bridges, where he would have to bend or even sometimes squat in order to clear the top of the boat. We obviously were carrying more weight than the boat in front, because their gondolier had to do a lot more bending that Marco did.

On some bridges, it was important to tip to one side to clear the top of the gondola - and then Barbara was told to bend sideways, which would no doubt not have helped her fear of water and seasickness. We rode under all these old and famous places - the Bridge of Sighs being the place where the condemned prisoners walked from the court house to the prison and was an enclosed bridge up very high.

We also noticed that above the top stories of each building, the paint and plaster were peeling off - and obviously nobody lived in them. It really was a contrast, with the fancy and famous below and the rotting above. The trip lasted for 30 minutes and was worth every penny of the £6 it cost. We then reassembled under Eleanor's red flag - and went back to St Mark's Square. From there she led us through the back streets to the Rialto - the market area and the famous bridge. But before we left the area by the gondoliers, she showed us where we would meet up for our next boat ride - an hour ride around the sea, seeing the various nearby islands. And she told us where to go for coffee if we got there early - and to use the toilet while we were it. The only thing really free in Italy were the churches. And of course they were full of masterpieces. The church where we were to meet was called the Vivaldi church, and was where the Four Seasons was first performed by the resident organist of the church - namely Vivaldi. But it was locked so we never did get to see inside.

Back to wandering down the side streets towards the Rialto Bridge. Again, the shops themselves were beautiful - full of expensive and wonderful things - and if you just looked up and saw the upper regions of the buildings, they were empty and uncared for. But there were masses of people.

We were warned to hold carefully onto our belongings because gypsies made a lot of money by picking pockets in that area. She said she had seen some at work, but when we asked how to identify them, she said they looked like anybody else, but you got to know who they were when you were in the area for as long as she had been.

We didn't really get a chance to look in the shops because we had to follow her flag - and it was easy to get separated with the millions of people lining the streets and all doing the same sort of thing. And this wasn't even tourist season. But after half an hour or so, we got to the bridge area, and she told us where to go for the market, and how to get back, and then left us to explore on our own for three hours - meeting us again for the boat ride at 3, by the church, or if not at the same place at 4 for a taxi-boat ride back to our bus.

We didn't have any clear plan in mind, so just wandered up and over the bridge and down the little streets off it. We went through the market pricing things.. The quality and variety of the fruits and vegetables was very high. One of the islands of Venice was more or less devoted to growing fruit and vegetables for the market, we were told by Eleanor.

Then we decided to have a snacky lunch and opted for sandwiches and drinks from a kiosk sort of place. The pizza looked very tempting, but looked hard to eat, because there was no place to sit down. We ate beside a bridge, and then Barbara fed her crumbs to the birds nearby. She spent a lot of time feeding the ducks and birds in Italy - and apparently at home has a real menagerie of animals who regularly visit her garden and sort of depend on her for taking care of them. She says she wouldn't go away for two weeks because it wouldn't be fair on her animals.

Then we slowly wandered back to St Mark's Square looking in lots of windows, but not actually buying anything that I can remember. When we got back, we decided to visit the church, and so went in but the normal seating was roped off There were a couple of bench seats at the back, so we sat for awhile and looked at the mosaics and other paintings which were very famous and beautiful. Then we walked around the church, but didn't go into the area where people were obviously paying for something special which turned out to be some gold picture behind the altar, which others of our colleagues who had paid said was well worth seeing.
 

There were workmen putting up a stage in the front of the church - probably for some special service - although it might have been for a concert. We did some more wandering around in the square and then headed towards the Vivaldi church where we were to meet the others. We were early and we were tired so we went into the hotel Eleanor had suggested and ordered tea. It took a long time to come, and was expensive. I ate loads of sugar lumps to make me feel like I had got more of my money's worth. Eventually we got out to meet with Eleanor by the boat - a few minutes late, and she wasn't very pleased - but others were even later. This boat was very big, but because we were late, we didn't have a chance to get a good seat on top or inside. We went outside but after awhile it was so cold and wet we went inside and just stood. Eleanor and another colleague each had half an hour's commentary to tell us what we were passing as we went along the Lagoon.

We passed the slave market areas - some military areas - and all along we saw sculpture which were part of a huge exhibition on show in Venice at that time. I didn't really enjoy the trip much, and didn't much care about what we were seeing but if the weather had been nice, the boat ride would have been fun. We went along the Lido - the so called Venetian Riviera - where there were lots of hotels and sandy beaches, and people who had cars could actually drive there. Various castles and famous hotels were pointed out including the one Princess Diana was staying in as she had come to open this special exhibition. Lido apparently means beach. I felt that our same amount of money £7 spent on this trip was no where the value of the gondola for half the time. When we got back we were to pick up the people who had not gone on the trip, but some of them were not there.

Remember me mentioning Barbara who is always slowest in bridge? Well she and her partner were not there, and we waited and waited. Finally somebody spotted them sitting outside the church - but they hadn't made any move to find the boat - and so we wasted maybe 10 minutes before they finally got on.

Then the boat ride back to the bus. And the 2 hour bus trip back. This time Eleanor was quiet - she had another full day the next day to Milan. All the tour guides were fluent in German as well as English and Italian, and they would do a commentary first in one language and then after a sentence or so, repeat in the other language, but very fluently. I suppose they say the things so often, its really memorised.