The best way to see Venice is, of course, from a gondola. Anna enjoyed such a trip with her sister Margrét but Malcolm never got round to it. Next time!

A quiet waterway just a few hundred meters from the hustle and bustle around St. Marks Square.

We shared the waterway by St. Mark's Square with gondolas, boats, yachts, water-taxis, water-buses, police-boats, ambulance-boats, rubbish-collecting-boats and any other kind of boat you can think of. We could hardly believe our eyes when this vast cruise-liner made its way past us and berthed right in the centre of Venice.

The Romans wrote about 'The Stormy Adriatic' and we can confirm that they got the description exactly right. Frequent thunderstorms tracked across our path and sometimes brought violent winds that blew up in minutes with little warning.

Being tied up to a pontoon or pile is not always a safe option because waves build up very quickly and if you are not there to slacken your lines the jerking motion can cause damage.

Out at sea, the storms pass over quickly and if you are well prepared they are not too much of a problem.

The storm passed over, in this case looking rather worse than it really was.