A cloudy start as we made our way to the office 25 yards from the campsite entrance to grab 4 tickets for a return boat trip to Venice. At €13 each…. Not bad for a 20 minute trip each way but be sure to get to the jetty ahead of time – we took the 10am out and 16.30 back, both of which were pretty chaotic! The boat takes you into Zattere where it is only a quick walk to the main points of interest.
As we walked towards the centre we passed a old chap with a violin. His face was ‘lived in’ and I am sure he could tell a story or two, he looked a real character.
For June and I it was a return trip but as the day cleared and the sun shone down it became a different Venice to the spring time of our last trip.
A quick stop at the Ponte dell’Accademia for some Time Lapse photography (will be posted when we get home) and on to the Piazza St Marco.
One of the things to do on June’s list was a ride on a gondola. So after lunch in a little square we made our way back to the outskirts of Piazza St Marco and paid our €80 for a 30 minute trip. It’s the same price for up to 6 passengers and the boats are owned by the gondolier. It is a ‘got to do’ really and none of us had been on one before. There was no ‘just one cornetto’ sang to us but we did get a bit of history as we were gondoliered along. Apparently you train with your father for a year, then go to college to study English, French and Spanish together with Venetian history. You can then take a driving test. After all that you still have to take a swimming/life-saving test before you are qualified…. Or so our Marco Polo told us anyway.
Back to the camp site for few domestic chores and planning where to go next. We knew we wanted to go towards the lakes towards the second week and it now looks like we will be off to Lake Maggiore. We have been using an IPhone app called Parking by Campercontact an app by the Netherlands Camper Club. It has proved its worth as you can down load maps for the area you are looking to travel to. There are other camping apps but they do not have the download option. I have also saved the sites listed as POIs for TomTom.
The other app I have found really useful is maps.me. This is £2.99 and again offers the option of downloading the areas you are travelling to. The maps are really detailed showing Supermarkets cafés etc.