South to Venice

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Saturday 3rd October
South to Venice
It has been a short but very comfortable stay(except the pillows)at our hotel far up in the hills.Like the hotel near Varese we woke with the sun coming in through the French doors which we opened and lay back and enjoyed the fresh air before breakfast.
Its not a great distance today down to the coast and our mobile home in the camping ground just outside Venice where we will be for the next three nights.
The trip down the hill through the little village and past the vineyards didn’t take very long and before we knew it we were back on route #12 looking for the turnoff to route #47 just before Trento.
Just after we turned off #12 we entered a series of tunnels,the longest being of 2.3km and we emerged finally into another valley that looked very similar to the one route #12 had carried us down from Bolzano the previous day except this one was narrower with less acreage of apple trees.
Ahead of us the hills on either side were getting lower and eventually we arrived on the vast flat plain that slopes gently down to the Gulf of Venice about 50km away.Now the area we were travelling through changed to more arable land which had had crops in during the summer.The farmers were now out again ploughing in what was left of the corn etc that had been grown.
The towns came along more frequently and the size of them grew as we continued on towards the coast.
We remembered that of course everything closes down for a siesta sometime between midday and 1pm so when we spotted a supermarket at just after 12.30pm we thought we better get in and buy our supplies to keep us going over the weekend.We are not sure what will be available close to the motor camp by way of a supermarket and although there is a store at the camp their prices will hurt the BBA budget.
One pleasing find was that one litre casks of wine can be brought for less than a Euro and although they don’t have a year for the vintage they generally have had a good flavour.On this occasion we did pay €1.35 for the white and €1.39 for the red.When they are calculated back to NZ dollars they are less than half the cost of cask wine at home and we grow enough of the stuff too!!
After the supermarket shop it was back on the road and before we knew it we were on route #14 heading for the airport with the motor camp just down the road.
We did our check in and were directed to what appeared to be a block of rooms which we thought was odd because we had booked a mobile home with cooking facilities.Sure enough the block only contained rooms so we had to go back and get it sorted.We were then redirected to the Casanova mobile home block and #10 which will be our home for the next three nights.
The camp isn’t particulary busy as the summer season has now ended and our deal here is a good one at €35 per night.The mobile home has a main bedroom with queen size bed,”guest bedroom”with bunks(we could sub lease and have it pay for our costs),a separate toilet and a separate shower as well as a lounge/dining/kitchen area in the middle.There is a full size frodge and gas cooking and water heating as well as electric heating.We think we shall be quite comfortable here.
We took a stroll around the camp and down to the boat marina which borders the eastern takeoff runway for the Marco Polo airport and we watched a couple of jets take off.We guess we will get used to the noise and as Gretchen pointed out we are off to the side of the airport and not directly under the approach or take off!!!
So it had been a short driving day and we sat back and relaxed in our mobile home until it was time for dinner.
We have a TV set but no aerial and we won’t bother asking for one as the reception won’t be off a satellite and therefore it is unlikely that there will be any English speaking channels to watch.
Instead after dinner we lay back on the couch that doubles for dinner table seating and fired up the computer to watch the DVD of ‘The Notebook’ just one of the pre recorded DVD’s we brought from home.I have seen it before but Gretchen hadn’t and so I told her to get her tissues ready as she would need them as the movie came to its conclusion and the whole plot was revealed.
Well all went well for two thirds of the movie and then when the plot really got going the DVD player seemed to jam part through a scene and we couldn’t get it so that it played a whole chapter without stopping again.Very frustrating and so we gave up before Gretchen needed her tissues and we shall have to watch it again when we get home.
We adjourned to bed having exhausted our entertainment options thinking that we would be getting an extra hours sleep in as we understood daylight saving finishes in Central European time tonight.

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