We went to Venice on Sunday the 28th July. Venice, California, that is; about 30min north of where we are living.

Venice was excellent - we spent an hour or more walking along the canals (just like in Italy, or so says the travel guide) which were very pretty and peaceful. Lots of beautiful houses (some big, some tiny) with lovely gardens; the suburb has been there quite a while and so the some gardens were established with nice trees, including some Eucalypts.

After walking along the canals we went down to Venice Beach, which you may have seen as Bay Watch (TV series) was filmed there (and probably other TV/movies); neither of us recognised it but it did look vaguely familiar.

Venice Beach is a bizzare place - someone said that the 60's really happened there and there are some bits left, like the palm readers, "interesting" artwork, and "very interesting" t-shirts and other products. The beach is very very wide - about 10min walk from stepping on the sand till you get to the water. Thousands of people on the beach and along the board walk.

One popular/famous part of Venice Beach is the Muscle Beach section where there is an outdoor gym, paddle tennis and hand squash (never seen either before), gymnastic equipment, basketball, and more. Rob got sore arm and chest muscles from trying the rings (like in the Olympics) - he got half way to hanging upside down but gave up. He then climbed a rope, which was a little easier until he realised he had to get back down :-)

The whole of the beach area is a popular place for "people watching", and we can now see why - a wide range of atires (or lack of) can be seen. Anyway, we enjoyed ourselves, and wished we'd taken bathers (yeah, obvious thing to have done) but are now suffering because we forgot to apply sunscreen to every part of our bodies.