Ahhh, Venice. Nothing is quite like it anywhere in the world. The beauty of the canals, the gondolas (including the singing gondoliers), beautiful buildings, villas and bridges, outdoor cafes and restaurants everywhere... It is enough just to sit on the sidewalk letting the sites wash over you.

Our apartment in Venice was right next to a busy little canal, so we sat at the window each day watching the many gondolas heading past . And given how many of them passed, at €80 a ride, this is one lucrative business for someone!! Every passenger on the many huge cruise ships in the harbour must take a ride as part of their itinerary, because there were no shortage of very large tourist groups having rides (interestingly many of the people we saw were playing with mobile phones, rather than looking at the sights, which is a huge waste of money!!).

The history of the city is interesting, with it having been a serious trading empire, religious centre, and naval force for many of the early centuries. You get a sense of the wealth when you look at all the villas and palaces which are located on every canal, especially the ones lining the Grande canal.

We visited a few museums and galleries including the Accademia (which is a small gallery with quite a lot of religious art) and the Correr museum (featuring art, history, and archaeology). But our favourite was the Doge's Palace (Palazzo Ducale), which was the seat of Venice's government for nearly seven centuries . It includes a quite awful prison, as well as the government rooms and the Doge's Apartments. The rooms for the government were fabulous - each room bigger and better than the previous one, with huge paintings, huge rooms... The system of government and justice, headed by the elected Doge (note: no hereditary monarchy here) had a senate, a Great Council as well as a special room for the 'group of ten' who initially performed a trial chamber role but became more like a cross between an inner cabinet and the KGB (there was a slot in their room where anonymous treason accusations could be left to be investigated by the group of ten - bet that was a really fair judicial system!!) plus special rooms for the three groups of 40 senators who performed a variety of different roles.

The prison was on several floors, with tiny doors, stone beds, no windows, except in the passageway that went along the bridge of sighs (where prisoners 'took their last sighs' as they went across the bridge before execution) .

We had a couple of meals at a small Restaurant up the road from our apartment. The waiter told Garth he 'was very courageous with his Italian' which was a compliment I think, given he kept saying 'bravo' when Garth asked for something in Italian!! And according to Garth, the waiter was a dead ringer apparently for some famous NRL player, and Garth was itching to ask him if he had Australian relatives.

We took a water taxi, a Vaporetto, up the grand canal (front seats in the open air, just like going on a cruise up the Sydney harbour - but a bit more glamorous!), watching the massive cruise ships crawling up the Giudecca Canal with tug boats pushing them up. They were decidedly out of place compared to the little vaporettos and gondolas. Each night we drank beer and prosecco overlooking the canal, watching the comings and goings on the water. It was a lot of fun!