Venice was beautiful city. Pictures don’t really covey how magical it is. But all the beauty didn’t hide one fact, the locals didn’t really like the tourists. I can’t blame them. We overwhelmed the city, crowded the water buses and were generally in the way. The Hostel, however, seemed like a deliberate insult. It was on the island of Giudecca, separated from the main city by the very wide Giudecca Canal. The first vaporetto off was at 10 in the morning, the last one back was at 6 in the evening. It was like they were doing everything possible to keep us away from the central city.
My wife, Anne, and I had come to Venice with three new friends, Maesa, Maxine and Julie, who we had met in Verona. All three worked as stewardesses on the same private yacht and they were taking some downtime to explore Italy. We decided that, between the five of us, we didn’t need to worry about the money so much and got a hotel room in the main the city. The new hotel was very close to the Labia Palace and, like the very mature group that we were, this engendered massive giggling fits.