Gondalars

If you are going to Venice and your worried that the iconic Gondalar with a singing Italian aboard may be just a legend and there not actully every where, well they are! and the singing Italians!

Down all of Venices streets there are river like roads with bridges. There are no cars in Venice everybody gets around by a boat.

I dont know what he was singing about but its such a great language!

Apparently it takes a gondalar driver 7 years to qualify! Due to the narrow river passages and difficulty in moving it. Takes just as long to be a pilot!

I ordered a taxi! What is this!

St. Marks Square

Not far from the dock you enter St. Marks square and the beautiful St Marks Campanile tower. (Again any fans of assassins creed 2 will know this tower). Was a massive tower bigger than the one i went in, in Verona was a great site to see.

Right opposite it is St. Marks Basilica. A magnificent church rounded on top and square and pointed round the edges.

It was very busy in this square and i was just amazed at how stunning it all looked and how strange it was to be finally stood in Venice.

Under St. Marks Piazza is this rather strange walk way. Really liked the roof carvings.

Lots of pidgings in the square.

It is a historic and grand building shame that they are begining to put a billboard up here. What is the world coming too seriously.

The strangest thing about Venice was there was water spilling up from the grates where ever you walked, due to the city floating on water. Suprised it hasn't sunk yet, i bet a lot of building work goes on daily to sort it all out.

The Piazza.

Not pizza, Piazza.

Italians are of the Christian religeon and the church was heavily painted with stories from the bible, all churches are but you knew these ones were extra special.

These bronze horses were given as a gift to the church, cant remember why, they are important anyway.

So far Venice has impressed!

Venice

Welcome to Venice or in the language 'Venezia'. Probbly one of the most iconic cities in the world purely floating on water. We had to get there by boat and on are approach we saw Venices Panorama. Beautiful white buildings, historic churches and...advertising? What ruined venices landscape was big billboards advertising things like phones and televisions.

Couldn't waite to dock in the city, was deffenetly a place i've always wanted to see.

We arrived on the busy dock of Venice. There were lots of people it was insane and very hot. On are approach the boat driver told us to look out for pick pockets because there were suppose to be many of them. It felt safe enough though we did see two police pursuing one man.

Now looking down these buildings is what venice is all about, the houses narrow and sepperated by small rivers, with curved bridges curled over the water.

But where are all the...Theres one! The famous Venecian Gondalar. There were plenty of them scattered through Venice.

Are tour guide with the orange umbrella took us round the complicated streets and to all the main sites.

Giuliette's Balcony

Verona is ovcourse home to Romeo and Giuliette and the famous Giuliette's balcony is one of the main tourist attractions.

This is the Balcony. It does look nice and romantic and the setting is very beautful but i was expecting more really. People qued up to get there picture taken on it, but wasn't that great. You can't see on this picture but there are lots of people, its a very popular site.

I was more amazed at the wall of Love. On the tunnel down to the balcony there are two long white walls where people are aloud to write love messages on. Its a nice idea and very romantic. My girlfriend wasn't present but i scribbled us down.

Grafiti artists are all romantics.

It was a nice tribute to love and to show are appretiation for those we love, i enjoyed reading the messages.

The Amphitheatre

There are many sites to see in Verona but the most famous has got to be the Amphitheatre. The large colosieum shaped opera stadium basically. I couldn't waite to see it but when i did i was suprised to see it wasn't as big as i imagined. Still impressive but i was expecting huge like that colosieum on the film 'Gladiator'.

It was fantastic though how it sat in the middle of this very modern Italian setting.

The architecture was also brilliant with its arches. It looked more like a museam though then a historical building though. Thats because its still open to the public.

Inside was more amazing! It did look huge from this angle! Reminded me off been in the Chinese olimpic stadium last year.

It was a bit of a shame the place was still a building site though. This historical looking part on top of the Amphitheatre was actully built recently, yet they built it to look old, i suppose it fits in with the rest of it but its kind of cheating.

But anyway it was an amazing place to see and gave the sense of the history of Italy with the Roman empire.

Panoramic view of the stadium in all its glory.

 They still put on operas here, must be amazing to see one in this kind of stadium. You can probbly hear it from outside as well, that would keep you up at night. Wonder what happens if it rains though?

This will of been where the emperor watched. Release the Tigers!

Buddah's

Datong wasn't as grand as Bejing but it did have this place called Yungang Grottoes. A fantastic place full of Chinese Monastery's, monuments and later on Giant Buddah statues. Looks like something from 'Indiana Jones'.

Elephant with 3 tusks. hmmm

Some very nice Chinese carvings here. They tell a story of somesort.

It happened to chuck it down while we were there, we got pretty wet but given where we were we didn't mind.

This looks like the good guys temple.

This is deffenetly the evil sorcerer's temple.

Eventully you reach the caves cut to shape many years ago.

What type of people make these things.

There were some huge Buddah's you can't quite understand how big they were on photos, they were spectacular and from a building point of view they wondered me more then the great wall.

The artistic carvings in the rock just add to its character and history.

"Hello everyone, I'm a buddah i live in a cave!"

Was a brilliant place to visit and if you happen to go to Datong deffenetly go see this place.

The Forbbiden city

We arrived at the grand entrance to The Forbbidon city with Chairman mao's picture above. There were lots of tour guides trying to get us to pay to go with them, we said no to a lot of them.

Its a fantastic looking red building and we couldn't waite to get in...

Did i say building, its a huge city! Inside the main entrance is a massive courtyard surrounded by the red brick of the city walls...

Through the next door another spectacular courtyard...

And then another! The city was huge, looks small from the entance but inside it goes on farer then the eye can see. Apparently the guy who lived here had many wives and each night he always slept in a new room, never the same one! Wonder which night he slept in the toilet?

Was a beautiful place to walk round and witness. Very Chinese with its curved, triangular buildings all decorated with stunning art, sculpture and carvings.

A top that mountain over there is the Summer palace. We didn't visit that though.

Each new courtyard is different then the last and all beautiful.

Great place to get a picture of me, but theres some kid break dancing in the back ground?

After the long treck through the city i sat and enjoyed a packet of monster munch, in tribute to Karl pilkington. After this we got one of those bike taxi's with the kart on the back home, was fun until the driver charged us the equivalant of £40! and practically snatched it off us! Beware they don't tell you the real price when you get in.