Venice and beyond- first few days in Italia

18TH JULY

It may take only 2 hours of flying to get from England to Italy but it takes about 2 hours of train travel to get from Gravesend to Stansted airport and then Treviso airport was similarly in the middle of nowhere- so it makes for a day of travelling nonetheless. Our flight seemed to be made up of school leavers and other such party annoyances – basically a large group of morons who liked to shriek and scream about anything and seeing as they were at the front of the plane and we were literally at the very back sometimes it made for a nervous journey when you can’t tell if the screams are warranted or not. A Ryan air threw us to the ground in what they like to consider a blaze of on timeness triumph- we even got treated to their little trumpet ditty that plays when you arrive on time. Didn’t matter that the landing was less than spectacular- we were on time. Just.

Due to my minor control issues I had taken a lot of planning in hand and together with my folder of booking and directions we jumped on board a bus headed for Venice. It took about 30 minutes then we were supposed to get on board another bus which would take us to our camp site. The camp site had claimed to be less than 20 minutes away- turned out that was a conservative estimate. We jumped on the bus loaded up with our bags. The bus sat there for about 20 minutes and allowed more and more people to clamber aboard until it was Thailand 3rd class conditions. It was a fairly frenetic trip but we eventually made it to be greeted by a 150 year old man who only spoke Italian who took us to our cabins.


19th July – Venice

Venice certainly lives up to the fantasy image- absolutely stunning! I had been told by countless people that it had a distinctly bad odour- but we were lucky and didn’t seem to encounter this problem. We spent the day moving between pizza slices, gelato stores, coffee bars, bars, fresh fruit stands and beautiful scenery.

Along the way we decided we would purchase a fairly hefty flagon of wine to consume back at the camp site. It went down a treat and was swiftly followed by a third bottle. Somewhere between the third and the fourth bottle (that Johnno ran to the shop to get before closing) we were joined by a dude called Trevor. He was an American studying for 3 months in France. Couldn’t speak a word of French after that time. Enough said.

20th July

Hangover city. More wandering. More fruit and more gelato. Venice is gorgeous.

21st July

Leaving Venice for Verona. Following the form we had developed over the last few days of spending about 3 hours deliberating over coffee it was after midday by the time we got to the train station. On arrival in Verona it was relatively easy to make our way to our campsite. This campsite claims to be the only campsite in Verona, and perched on the top of a hill near a castle overlooking the town we dared to assume it would be rather spectacular. View was. Accommodation wasn’t. We had booked a 4 person cabin- what we got was a one person 7-0 year old stationary caravan. It looked like some kind of Disney creation and seriously wasn’t built for four. We bunked down pretty much all on top of each other re-creating some kind of teenage slumber party gone terribly wrong. Em and Jonno ended up sleeping outside in the early hours because it was so hot. Not good. We were quite relieved to get out of there. Verona itself was quite beautiful- whole streets made of marble and lots of high end fashion stores. Not great for finding cost friendly food but nice for a day trip.