Our final stop in Italy was the very unique but very over run by pigeons city of Venice. Here's what went down.

It turns out that the hotel we were staying at in Venice (well actually in the nearby industrial town of Mestre, since Venice is the most ludicrously expensive place on earth) had a 70's disco. Fortunately, we were forewarned, and Brad, Anthony and myself stumbled across and op shop in Rome so we had some good duds to wear.

This was a night that we had been setting aside for the whole tour as the party night, and the fact that the dinner that night had complimentary wine didn't do the party any harm. Ok, I will get to the point. We put on silly clothes, drank a lot and went to bed very late.

The next morning, after everyone prized themselves out of bed and had 10 coffees, we headed into the famous city, set on 118 islands. I could go on and on about the uniqueness of Venice with its canals, but I am just not going to. Sure, they are nice, and the gondola ride we went on was probably one of the highlights of the trip, but despite that there is a whole lot of stuff not to like about Venice. It would be a lot more fun if they allowed jetski's though....

First of all, there is an absolutely hideous amount of pigeons, and it is made worse by the fact that street vendors sell bags of seeds to tourists to feed them. I am sure that some people enjoy them, but I just felt like I was in some Hitchcock film the whole time. You stand in the main square and the filthy disease ridden birds just flock all around you.

Secondly, Venice is horrendously expensive. Try $8A for a coffee, or to $35 per memory card to get your photos put on CD, it is just unbelievable. We went to a glass blowing demonstration (Venice is of course famous for glassware, which I will get to in a moment), and we saw a guy make a little horse. It was pretty cool, and in the shop afterwards they could sell you one for 22 euro. We saw exactly the same thing on of the other bajillion glass shops for 4 euros! Almost as shonky as Thailand.

In fairness, there is a lot of absolutely amazing glass art to be had in Venice. Seeing the guy make the horse piqued our interest a little bit on this art, so we thought we would like to see a master artist at work. So we got on a water bus to the isle of Murano where they all work. We got straight off of the bus/boat/whatever you want to call it and headed to one of the places to see an artist at work.

It turns out, that most people in Italy have their holidays in August. The master glass artists are now exception. We of course didn't find this out until after we saw an apprentice make another horse. It must be the first thing they teach you in glass blowing school.

And that was pretty much our day in Venice. Cruised the canals and watched some guys make little glass horses.

Dinner that night is worth a mention though. It was our last supper on the tour so to speak, so we went with a few friends we met on the tour to the little restaurant next door to the hotel. It, like every other place had pizza and pasta as the main fare, but also had an outside BBQ. I had a 400gm t-bone, which after being away from home for nearly a month was absolutely the best thing since sliced bread.