We had three days in Venice and took full advantage of our travel card on the vaporetti (water buses). Although it is expensive at €40 for 72 hours, it’s a lot cheaper than the water taxis or gondolas. It probably worked out at about €2 a trip. Neither of us had been to Venice for many, many years so we ensured we did all of the touristy things like the Basilica, Doge’s Palace including walking over the Bridge of Sighs, Murano for the glass blowing and Burano for the pretty coloured houses. We also went round the Peggy Guggenheim gallery and part of the Biennale Art Festival where my niece in law, Trine, was exhibiting.

But we also took time to just wander the streets and canals, away from the main drag. One of the areas we visited was the Jewish Ghetto. Apparently, this is how the name ghetto came into being. The Doge rounded up all the Jews in 1527 and put them on an island that was originally a foundry, gheto in Italian,  and enforced a curfew to stop the men fraternising with the local women.

Nimmie has been staying on the island of Certosa, reclaimed marshland that is now a lovely park area, although the mozzie nets came in very handy at dusk. On Thursday, we took the dinghy over to St Elena to do a grocery shop after having inspected and filtered our fuel. Thankfully, we had very few black bits and no sign of the dreaded diesel bug in the remaining 38 litres.

So, on Friday morning we left the marina and refuelled on the Lido, then took the opportunity to get as close to San Marco as we were allowed (you need a special licence to go into the Grand Canal) before heading out of the lagoon to cross to Croatia.