In Venice dad surprised us by taking us on Mum’s dream of going on a gondola costing NZ $160 (the price was not Dad’s dream – he thinks $160 for 40 minutes is a rip off – it ended up only taking 25 minutes which is worse – never mind). On the gondola the first thing we did was take photos.

Here I am with the drivers hat.

Dad in the drivers hat on the back of the gondola.

Then we drove down the canals and the man said that the highest that the water ever flooded was one and a half meters above normal. The bad part for dad was that he had to lean towards mum because the gondola was designed so it would always go straight when only paddled on one side. That meant that the center line is of center so dad had to balance the boat by putting more weight on one side. When we were off the boat we saw a cruse boat shop and dad said that a cruse was worth the money compared to the gonadal!

(Tuesday, 1 May 2012)