NYE in Venice

Buongiorno readers!


Tom and I have just returned from a wonderful holiday in Venice. I've wanted to go there for years, and it certainly lived up to my expectations. A beautiful maze, filled to bursting with jaw-dropping architecture, gold-framed frescos and mounds of glistening gelato. We saw the weird and the wonderful; thousands of paintings of Baby Jesus, gondola traffic-jams, and a 36ft long prehistoric crocodile skeleton. 


Unfortunately, the majority of the museums, churches and galleries had photography restrictions- so we couldn't take anywhere near as many photographs as we would have liked to, but I've uploaded a small selection of my favourite shots below. There are more available on my Flickr should you wish to have a peep.

I spotted this machine in the entrance of an alleyway. Venice is certainly the "City of Love"...


We went to an eye-opening museum dedicated to the work of Leonardo da Vinci; before our visit I had no idea he had designed so many machines for the military, including the tank below:

And this (scale model version) people-scythe....

He also designed scuba-equipment including this scuba suit and bell:

And these hand-flippers!! Neat, huh?

He also designed a portable piano....

And, finally, I saw this sign in the Museum's Gift Shop. For da Vinci fans they were rather rude about his most famous work... 

Outside of the museum, there were beautiful views:

Fire hydrants that looked like robots:

Papier-mache masks:

Beautiful buildings:

And some wonderful works of art:

Santa meets Jesus. Whose autograph would you get first?!

And, finally, the perfect summary of Venice; an espresso machine bolted onto a boat.