I'm falling way behind on these journal entries, because there is never time to work on them. So I'm going to start breezing through the highlights.

At Ben's birthday dinner

St Marks Square

We spent a good portion of our second day in Venice with Bill and Stephan. After breakfast, we walked across to the Academia, the most famous musuem in Venice, jam-packed with renaissance and great-master paintings. As two couples, we tried to do the joint audio-guide, but we soon tired of shuffling along linked by double headphones, and the audio guide was very dry and pompous. So we dumped the guides, and thereafter all happily and shamelessly breezed through the rest of the collection in thirty minutes.

Bill, Ben and Stephane on the Grand Canal

The Grand Canal

After visiting the Academia

After ambling about in the same pleasant and fascinated manner as Ben and I had done alone on the previous day, we happened upon the high-fashion part of town, and this is where Bill came into his own. He's a natty, sophisticated, well paid man, and he led us into all the high-end stores fearlessly. For a panicky moment, I actually considered paying 380 Euros for a Prada sweater, or 215 for a Versace shirt. As it was, I tried on a zippered, sleeveless jacket which was quite flattering, and Ben insisted on buying it for me, perhaps feeling a little guilty at the cost of his birthday dinner the previous night.

Ben in a little eleven-hundred-year-old building

Bill and Stephane can shop until they drop, so we parted company with them and took a nap, rejoining them for an incredible dinner at a hole in the wall which put Ben's expensive birthday dinner to shape. It was called Trattoria alla Rivetta, and most of the customers seemed to be gondoliers, which we took as a good sign. The food was simple but perfect - you could imagine a grandmother in the back serving it all up.

The next day, packing, checking out of the hotel, and more shopping until it was time to move all our bags to the water taxi and get over to the cruise ship. It was so exciting to be finally at that moment, particularly as we neared the ship and saw how big and beautiful it was. For some reason, though, I developed a foul mood - irritable; completely out of sorts. I more or less hid it from everybody. I think it was actually a reaction to a pill Ben had given me to help me sleep the previous night.

In a water taxi en route to the cruise ship

In a convoy of water taxis approaching the ship

But my mood couldn't survive steaming out of Venice at sunset on a cruise ship filled with 2200 gay men. As Ben and I stood and watched, wrapped in each other's arms, Venice started to recede into a golden red haze. It was the first of many moments of pure exhileration which I'll remember for the rest of my life.