Blogs from Venice, Veneto, Italy, Europe - page 13

So our night in lovely Tuscany ended and we took breakfast on the garden, what a view!!! Heading off we made our way east to San Marino through hills, mountains, the worst roads in Italy and glorious scenery. San Marino was not what we expected. It's basically a huge hill surrounded by flat plains with amazing views both up the hill and out to the sea. Ash had his picture taken outside the football stadium, we both had a quick ice cream in the McDonalds with the best view ever, a windy drive down the hill and we were on our way to bologna. Italian driving is no better on the east. Italians idea of lane discipline is to constantly be between two, never use the inside lane even if you're traveling at twenty and preferably ... read more

We spent a couple days in the city of canals of Venice, Italy. We lucked out to have great weather while there, but during the overnight hours each night there were good amount of thunderstorms with heavy rain. We stayed in a small 3 bed cabin. It was nice just walking around the city and not worrying about cars or bikes. We can now cross off our bucket list having real fresh authentic Italian pasta in Italy :). We decided when leaving for the airport at the end of our journey here to walk around 1.5 hours so we could each save 8 euros.... read more

Not sure if you can call today a rest day, this morning we took a boat to Murano Island to see the glassmakers at work. What artist these people are. The glass works is beautiful and to think all these items are handmade. After a wonderful couple of hour at Murano we then get a boat to the island of Burano where the art of lace making is undertaken. Unfortunately, we found ourselves in a shop with the pushiest sales person we have every come across, was a very unnerving feeling. Need a large glass of Aperol Splitzer after this, thank goodness the restaurant down the road and the view of the wonderful coloured homes could help with this. Burano is a lovely colourful outer island of Venice with small almost comically house painted in striking ... read more

Serenissima – the old lady of the sea Venice . She is beautiful. She sits in her lagoon check by jowl with the industry that both sucks the life out of her and gives her her lifeblood. Marghera her port and industrial side. Tourists make Venice what it is. Both a pleasure and a delight but the bane of her life. She needs tourists like a man needs water but there is a point when enough becomes enough and she is spoilt by her success. We decided to stay at Serenissma Camping site. One we have stayed at before. It seemed Ok last time and this time at first seemed OK. Our peace was shattered though as the dog next door started up barking and never stopped all night. What made it worse was the fact ... read more

This morning our room flooded in Venice! Not because of a high tide though, our shower didn't drain properly and it was so bad that it started to enter our bedroom. The hotel staff were really good though and they fixed it and cleaned it all up while we had our breakfast. It was raining this morning and there is already a huge difference in the water level in the canals compared to yesterday. So in the rain we headed out to the bell tower in St Mark's square. We'd planned to walk up but the only option was to take the lift. We got to the top and had a great view of Venice, all the roofs have orange tops and the beautiful cathedrals stood out everywhere. The bells then started to go off while ... read more