You can't be in Venice without (a) seeing the Grand Canal, (b) taking a gondola ride, (c) having a musician and a singer somewhere on one of the boats.

Oh, and (d), taking photographs.

The guy in the front of this boat is the singer who had been assigned to our little flotilla, though he had yet to start work since we had only just pulled out. The middle guy? You can guess. And the third guy was a member of our tour group doing what tourists do.

Yes, this half hour tour was a tourist trap and a bit of a cliché. But... if you don't do it, you'd end up regretting it.