Lido

Lido, an island of Venice is a long thin strip with beach on both lengths, its at the end of the vaperatto (boat bus) line 1 not far from the gardens of the biennale. Jayne and l were kindly invited to stay a night there with our friends Nicola and Carlotta. They had organized an architectural based forum at the Excelsior Hotel for 350 people, it was quite an event over three days, lots of discussions, one on one meetings and main forums each night. Now we only came for a night and spent sometime around the pool and walking on the beach, but that evening there were drinks in which we met some incredible people, Alex, the dean of architecture at the Royal Academy of Art, Nadir from a very clever company called Transsolar, that used natural heat/cool in commercial and residential use, Riccardo who is the chief designer at Nicola, Carlotta's magazine "The Plan, and a good friend of theirs, Carlo who works in the building industry. We visited the Chinese and Russian pavilions, and the architectural biennale, which opens this week.
Ilse and Swen our Belgium friends were also there, sadly they leave soon to China, but it was great to have sometime with them quietly, and in Venice before they go.
That night we had a lovely dinner in the hotel with some of these people and others from all around the world, all who had come to be part of the forum.
Lido is a brilliant place to stay in Venice, as it is quite and yet close by, and a great place to escape at the end of the day the maddening crown of Venice, the nice thing about the Excelsior is that it has its own boat that shuttles to San Marco, and it is very stylish, l felt rather important in it! On the beach in front of the hotel is a long beach with incredible canvas huts that you rent for the day (200 euro), these huts have deck chairs, lounge beds and changing areas, a home away from home, and they are perfectly positioned along the beach with bougainvillea growing around them. The beach itself faces onto the adriatic, and so is not the best, no surf, the water is clean but not always clear, and the sand is more like silt, but we know that, and the view and the surroundings  compensate for that.
The following day we went to Venice to see the pavilions, and ended up with Riccardo and Carlo, at Harry's having bellini's, and then to Fortuna Museum to see a Dora Marr exhibition and some others. Later in the day we drove back with Carlo, having a great conversation.
Both Carlotta and Carlo have been most helpful in helping us get the boys into a local italian school , called Malpighi.

On the hotel boat, feeling great

Jayne celebrating having time away

Beach infront of hotel, note the beach box's