24 Hours in Venice

So I've had a bit of a holiday, definitely more relaxed and ready to tackle my last 100 days in London!

 I finally went to Italy and it was just what I imagined and hoped it would be!

I have since decided that (1) I want to move to Rome and (2) I might have a bit of a problem when it comes to the need to take photos - 1,000 in 5 days! 

Of our whirlwind 5 days in Italy, we spent 24 hours in Venice. The thunderstorms at night excited me! The people selling plastic helicopter things irritated me (but not as much as the umbrella/rose guys in Rome). But most of all, wandering through the tiny passageways and walking in circles amazed me! The island is unlike anything I have seen before and I definitely need to go back for a longer period of time to really get past the "touristy" façade.

On Monday morning we decided that we were going to walk around and try and see as much as we could. We thought that since we had pretty much covered Per Rialto and Piazzo San Marco the previous evening we must walk in the opposite direction to the signs. We could not escape them! No matter which direction we turned we landed up walking back towards those places or - coincidentally - our hotel!

 At this stage we decided it might be a good idea to visit Lido and the Giardini, both of which were completely different to the areas we explored the day before  (Lido had cars!!)  but so peaceful and exactly what we needed!

Before I get to the photos - my sister has started a really interesting blog - Studio Gold - which is worth a look! She also introduced me to Pinterest which I can see will provide me with many hours of procrastination in the months to come!

Scotland!

Well! The past week has been insanely busy - I really don't think I have ever worked this hard! But its alright... I keep reminding myself that I'm going to Italy for 5 days and that always cheers me up. At this stage I haven't had any time to actually plan what I want to see or where I want to go... but I have a 2 hour flight in which to plan.

About 3 weeks ago, I spent the long weekend in Scotland. We went to Edinburgh and then went on a tour with Haggis Adventures, up to Loch Ness and the Isle of Skye. Unfortunately we didn't spot Nessie, but we still managed to have a 'Barry' time. By day we saw the Scottish country side and by night we went to crazy hat birthday parties, dressed up in tartan togas, danced on tables, wore boxes on our heads pretending to be robots and met a very amusing sheep shearer who wanted to marry my sister. He even asked how many sheep our father has!

So enough writing for now, here are some photos from our trip. I promise I will not leave it so long before I post photos from Rome and Venice.

Tower Bridge

I have been working in London for 15 months now and the one thing that I have been dying to see is Tower Bridge open.

Seeing that I work between London bridge and Tower Bridge, this should not have been such an elusive sight, but as I don't often sit on the side of the building with a Thames view it has taken a little while.

Last Thursday though, we were sitting in a room that had a perfect view and I managed to get some stunning pictures as a huge ocean liner type ship made its way up the Thames.