Venice...city of canals, and Verona

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Day one

Travelled to Venice today. Its amazing how quickly the countryside can change. When we crossed the border in to italy, the cliffs dissapeared and we became surround by vineyards. We drove through the Dolmites on our way to venice. We arrived into Camping Alba D’Oro fairly late. So we settled in with a pizza and a couple of bottles of wine with Sophie and Clint from NZ. Soon enough it 1am and were ready for bed.

Day two.

Today we caught the valpretto (water bus) from the Piazza Roma down to San Marco Square along the Grande Canal. Venice is not quite what I expected. It has lots of narrow little streets with canals of water that stop you from getting to where you want. There are lots of gondalas that criss cross paths with the valpretto, but some how there are no accidents and it all seems to flow. We arrived at San Marco Square and got lunch before beginning the trek around the streets (which have no names). There were shops after shops filled with Murano Glass, but I was good and didn’t buy anything, mostly because it would make my bag to heavy. We wandered for hours down streets, over bridges, along canals. It was great fun getting lost, and lets face it sooner or later you will come to either the Grande Canal or the edge of the island! Got lots of great pictures and had a nice dinner in a random restaurant we came across. Most place in europe charge you an extra euro or two if you want to sit down and eat at their restaurant, and public toilets also charge you to use them!

Day three.

Geoff’s birthday! And our one and only day of sunshine. We hit venice early today, and got on another valpretto to take us to the island of Murano, which I must admit I like better than the island of venice. It was smaller, very few tourists, cleaner and had the same appeal as venice but without the tourist stalls every few meters! We went into the glass museum where there is a large display of murano glass as well as glass discovered during restoration works around different places that date back to 1 A.D. Aborigines were still decorating their nulla nulla’s with clay then! Unfortunatly we didn’t get to see any glass blowing whuile there.

We made our way back to venice in the early afternnon and headed to the St. Marks Bascilica.
This place is amazing. Massive amounts of gold on the roof, huge wall murals of religious scenes and tiled patterned floors. We paid to go up to the high alter, under which the body of St. Mark lies (but not before being stolen from Alexandria in Egypt and being transported to venice in a barrel of pork!) There is a very large painting at the high alter which is covered in precious jewels and gems which is impressive.

We also made it to the Doges Palace. Doges were the people who where way up the ladder, but never actually did anything for the country (bit like Kevin Rudd). They effectively rule the country, but have no say in decisions that are made regarding those matters, and are also not allowed to leave their place of residence (house arrest) and if they do go away to represent Venice as its Head Of State, it can be for no longer than a couple of days. Not a great job. The Doges Palace was amazingly huge, and it also held the prisons. On the way to these, you cross over the Bridge of Sighs, named because as prisoners were transported to their cells they would cross this bridge where they can see Venice (and freedom) and sigh.

We also when to the Museo Correr, which has the Archeological and bibliogical museums in there as well. That took a few hours to get around. Looking at all the paintings of Venetian life, Mary and Jesus, old coins and pottery etc. we walked back to Piazza San Roma to catch the bus back to the camp ground. We made it as far as the airport before relising that the last bus had left the airport and we had to wait now for the night bus for almost 40 mins. Surprise surprise it didn’t show up, so into the airport we went for dinner. When we found nothing edible we guessed we would have to catch a taxi. So $15 Euro later as we are driving out of the airpot our bus drives past - 30 mins late. Not happy jan! back to camping with dinner for a late tea. Yes we were still hungry after eating 3 lots of gelato!

Day 4

Today we caught the train to Verona. The setting of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliette play which is based upon 2 Veronese families. Verona is very pretty, but the rain was relentless and even an umbrella couldn’t stop us becoming saturated. We went first to the Arena Verona, here every summer are the operas. The stadium can seat 20,000 ppl, and is steep. Ypu wouldn’t want to fall down the stairs because you wont stop till you hit the bottom. From here we made our way to the house of Juliette. The courtyard is small but the entrance leading into it is covered in graffiti and love letters to Juliette. In the courtyard you can see the balcony from where Juliette said “Romeo Romeo where for art thou Romeo”! we also went into the house where Juliette lived which they have turned into a museum which has all the props from the original Romeo and Juliette movie. Had another nutella crepe, and boy was it good!

From here we made our way to our accommodation. After standing in the pouring rain for about an hr waiting for buses that didn’t want to come we finally started the walk up the mountain to the campsite. Don’t ask me why I booked a tent for the night in Verona, but it was a bad mistake. We were wet. Our bags were soaked through, no clean clothes, no dry clothes, no clothes dryer and we were sleeping in a tent with a pissy piece of foam a very thin blanket and no pillow. We tried to go to sleep at 630pm hoping morning would come quicker but by 650pm we had had enough and we had packed up and were on our way to the youth hostel! We felt much better now, so headed into Verona for dinner - pasta and a whole litre of vino to wash it down! We had dinner about 50 m from the Verona arena where there was an opera (Aida) on.

Day 5
Raining. Again. It just doesn’t stop. So we headed back into Verona and found a café for a hot chocolate. Not your average hot chocholate. This was the ultimate. It was a cup of melted chocolate. No milk no water no nothing but a cup of hot yogo almost! Telling you now…it was good!
We did our own walking tour today (thanks Simmone!) and finished up at Verona gallery. The gallery displays there exhibits amongst the old archeological ruins of Verona, and its all underground. Its very cool. The exhibit we saw was a photographic competition for journalists and professional photographers. It was very cool. We decided to head back to venice early as we had lots of washing and drying to do before heading off to Rome the next day.

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