Venice
It was really nice to catch up with Curl and Maddy and share some of the sights and places we enjoyed when we visited Florence, the frustration you normally feel when viewing beautiful sights and thinking, wow dad would love this or wouldn’t mum love to be here was diminished and a sense of fulfillment was achieved. Having other friends around added a different dimension to the trip that I had not envisaged.

Florence to Venice did not look as though it would be a long trip but let me tell you the mountain range between us and the East coast made for more fantastic scenery, it is possible to use the motorways but as we have no time frame or schedule to keep we are able to explore the off roads at our leisure and pleasure. That’s if you consider skinny windy roads a pleasure as I do.
Unfortunately the old Fiat is struggling a bit and I fear before long she may need some attention to the gearbox, the question is do I attempt to have some work done in a country with language difficulties or chance it till we get back to the UK. Well I think with so many mountain ranges to cross I will have it looked at before we hit another one.
Once over the ranges the roads widen and the down hill trek is much easier. We find a campground in the middle of nowhere and bed down to see out the rain which has been threatening across the mountains.
The next 250 kms to Venice are quite flat and it is very obvious that we are entering into the wealthier North of Italy.
Cointha and Daniel become excited as we reach Fusina which is where we will be based while visiting Venice.
We set up camp as close to the water as possible and have a splendid view of Venice about 3 kms away over the water, we are now in for a treat as Deb and I stayed here in1995 and remember fondly huge cargo ships which pass the campsite about 20 meters from our motor home. It is an awesome sight for us country bumpkins and we are constantly dazzled by the sight over the next few days.
We are treated to a magnificent thunder storm that night followed by a deluge of rain, it rains all night and we see no sign of it letting up next morning so we catch up with some writing and washing while watching the people who are leaving slip and slide all over the campsite trying to retrieve there huge motorhomes from the quagmire.
After a hearty lunch we decide to brave our way across the Laguna Veneta and down the Grand Canal into Venice onboard the water taxi, as luck would have it the weather cleared and we spent a wonderful afternoon and the next few days in sunshine exploring the narrow streets and canals, stopping on the little bridges and marveling in the attractive and unique construction of this marvelous city.
No trip to Venice is complete without a gondola trip so after negotiating a reasonable fare with the Gondolier we set off along the canals. (Travel advice when negotiating with a Gondolier finds one that speaks your language as most of them have been trained to also be guides so check first as a good gondolier are only too happy to answer all manner of questions). We found a wonderful Gondolier, who’s name escapes me as we christened him Casanova and that name stuck. Well he was a second generation gondolier and had a sound knowledge of Venice, Venetian life and who was who, he even introduced us to his father as our gondolas passed on a narrow bend amidst a traffic jam of gondolas, speed boats and water taxis with lots of shouting and banter as you can only expect in Italy.
Saint Marks Square is a magnificent setting for a restaurant and there are quite a few lining the square, most notably Floriana, the oldest, its interior very elaborate in a classic ornate Italian style. The thought had crossed our minds that it would be nice to enjoy a coffee at Floriana while listening the orchestra complete with grand piano playing for their guests but at 8 euro($13.00) per coffee and $26.00 for a sandwich we decided to buy a bag of corn at $1.00 and allow the kids to feed the pigeons while Deb sat at one of their tables when the waiter was not looking in order to be a patron long enough to take a photo without the luxury of a bill. Venturing into the back streets of Venice we stumbled across a small shop where a glass blower was making tiny Gondolas with gondolier, so a souvenir gondola was purchased, I am starting to wonder now after 3 months and the amount of books and souvenirs we have purchased and 5 months to go, just how we will manage to board the plane home. Cointha would have loved about 300 of the beautiful masks in all shapes, sizes and colors that are able to be purchased all around the town, but I fear they would not last the journey so we opted for some tiny replicas that could be easily stowed.
The sun has disappeared now and as happened on our arrival the rain has returned
on the day we are leaving challenging us to negotiate our way between the trees and the Laguna slipping and sliding our way back to the bitumen successfully I might add.
This mornings adventure begins with a search for a place to refill our gas bottle, not that it is empty but after the exploits of Paris, we thought not to gamble with the gas.
Success was achieved and we now head for Lake Garda where we plan to relax in a resort and maybe find someone who can service the van.

Venetian masks