MP3 City Guides

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Florence
We only had a long weekend to do the city and so your tour really helped us get our bearings. There's just so much to see there! I know we only scraped the surface but it worked really well for us.
Tanya Ellison - (27/08/06)

Venice
This was a great tour that took you everywhere you needed to go. Particularly liked the walk through of the mosaic frescoes on the front of the Basilica. We had a great time in Venice, made all the more special by this evocative guide. Like the speaker's voice too - one of the best I've listened to.
Andrea How - (19/02/06)

VENICE - visit the city for its wonderful regatta

Regattas have been held on the Venetian lagoon since the thirteenth century when boats that could hold up to 20 oarsmen took to the waters.

  Anyone has enjoyed a Venice city break knows how the water is ever present – you’re never more than a few metres away from it in Venice, it seems.  Our Venice mp3 tour tells the story of the city’s emergence from swamps. 

  Venice’s regattas are still held today and the most important is the Historical Regatta which takes place on Sunday September 5th this year. 

  If you’re doing an audio tour of Venice then try and get along.  It starts with the Historical Procession featuring a parade of rowers and Venetians in sixteenth century costumes. They then re-enact the unforgettable arrival in Venice of Caterina Cornar, the Queen of Cyprus. Then come the "bissioni", the eight oared gondolas, the "balotine" with six oars followed by the magnificent and lavish ceremonial gondolas and the multi-oared boats belonging to the various rowing clubs.

   Then the regattas start: one for the young, for women, one for the boats called "caorline" and finally, the most exciting of all, the two-oared gondolas race, where all the boats are numbered and differently coloured.  The finish line for these regattas is at the bend in the Grand Canal, between the Palazzo Balbi and the Ca' Foscari.

   This is where you’ll find the "Macchina", a wooden construction in the Baroque style decorated with statues and allegories, where the VIPs sit and where the winners receive their prizes.  Once the regattas have finished, all the canals come to life with boats, in a loud and merry confusion and various artistic displays start in the squares, irrespective of size.

  It’s not to be missed.



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