Intro to Venice

After our wonderful, fabulous, stunning, marvellous, beautiful stay in Umbria, we had to drive ourselves from our little hideaway two hours south of Florence through the mountains of Bolgna (stunning!) to Venice. I (Chris) was all for driving ourselves around the Italian countryside, but now... NA AH! David drove all the way, I navigated (and drove I didn't take my eyes off the road for a second!!), although we stuck to the motorways (and learnt very quickly about their toll road system - not bad), and were immediately in fear for our lives. Well I was anyway, David says he enjoyed the experience, I DIDN'T! We were in a very little car, Nissan Micra, which maxed out at about 130 kms per hour and that meant the engine was screaming in pain, so there we were minding our own business and car after car "sped" passed us...they must have been going 160 + kms per hour. What got me, was the "no" using of blinkers over here...you just slide passed anybody in the right hand lane (the wrong side of the road as far as I'm concerned!!) and slide back into the right hand lane at high speed and no blinker. Then there were the millions of trucks, that mostly sat in the extreme right, but many many of them passed you if you weren't travelling fast enough. It was very stressful...I was glad to get to Padova which was the last turn off the motorway to Venice.

Then we got lost...now looking at the map it is hard to believe that you could get lost...but we did. And what a fortuitous (sp??) turn of events this was. We found ourselves driving along the SR11 which was the side road to Venice and we suddenly became aware of the most magificent "old" buildings along a canal. We "rubber-necked" all the way to Venice and I didn't say to David once (unlike on the motorway) don't look out the window...in fact it was impossible not to be blown away by the stunning array of architecture. Of course, we had no idea that these buildings were a very important part of the Italian history, we only found this out later and of course I didn't get my camera out quick enough. Oh well, another place that we have to return to one day!




Then we sort of got lost again, but finally found the bridge to cross over into Venice itself. The excitement was building...firstly that we arrived alive (no mean feat!) and Venice awaited us on the other side. We are still pinching ourselves everyday. VENICE...the Venice that we have only read about before...we were almost there.

We dropped off the hire car...again I felt totally naive and innocent and a little bit lost...got a map (noone is very helpful here either, which is a shame!)...worked out a route to get to San Marco square...once there via a thrilling water taxi (yes, thrilling...every building along the canal is a masterpiece!)...rang the manager of the hotel for directions...not really helpful in these little narrow streets (many not marked on the map!)...stumbled along the very uneven surfaces of the roads, dragging the (my now broken) suitcase up and down lanes...which all look the same (David I think I've seen this shop before!!)...finally asked in a restaurant for further directions...left...right...left...sure, did I mention that these lanes look the same...up and over many bridges (with steps not ramps with the broken suitcase!) finally find the hotel...launch myself at the reception desk...soooooo glad to have arrived....sorry madame the 'otel has a broken pipe and there are no rooms available...we have moved you to another hotel, just two minutes away...our porter will take your bags...yes HE WILL...I have a broken suitcase. Off we go following the porter who was walking very very fast through the narrow lanes, we couldn't keep up and he kept disappearing around corners. Finally we got to our new destination (which was much more than two minutes away!) to be told that there were no rooms available and we were around the corner, just two minutes away...OH SURE!! Finally we were taken to our room in the third hotel (and the room was next door anyway!) It was a lovely room, with our own private balcony over looking the canal. Lovely...King and Queen Farouk were back!! 

His Lordship in his Venetian Chamber!!





Madame having brekky out on our balcony overlooking the
canal. Very nice indeed!!!

We were only there one night unfortunately, and we had to reverse the journey to back to the port, which is where we dropped to car off...aghh!!!!!!! Broken suitcase...water ferries...taxi...and then we were there looking at our ride for the next eight days. A very very very very BIG cruise ship! I am so stupid, I had no idea that our cruise to Istanbul and back was on a ship this big...oh well another adventure begins.

Our home for the next 8 days!