Venice - Italy

Sam's & Libby's Highlights & Impressions

• Family gondola ride on the canals of Venice
• Watching Venetian glass being blown at historic Murano
• Buying pieces of hand made Venetian glass incl bracelet charms
• Touring the Grand Canal from the front seat of the local ferries
• Marina di Venezia campground pool & facilities

Sam's & Libby's 'Half Way' Highlights & Impressions

• Our visits to Disneyland & Venice
• Touring France
• Riding motorbikes on the Amalfi Coast
• Gelato ice creams & other local foods
• Enjoying the many great pools & beach at the various camp grounds we have visited
• Enjoying the freedom of our new bikes
• Meeting & making good friends along the way
• Communicating by travel blog

Bonjourno from Stunning Venice, Italy - our 'half way' highlight!

Venice - what a magnificent place to mark the half way point of our family 'adventure'. All of us, (kids included) have been overawed by what Venice has had to offer ... we have taken more photo's here than any other place we have visited and we have been constantly treated to sights and the magic of this water borne city. We have spent hours and hours on ferries and boats exploring the water ways and we have never once been bored ... we have all fallen in love with Venice!

Our week started with few highlights as we travelled north from Sorrento direct to Bologna, some 6 hours driving in 30 deg plus heat ... Jenny Browns blog message was totally unsolicited but was rather poignant and came as welcome relief to us at the end of our long day's journey.

Bologna, was not a particular highlight for us as we reckon we've probably been spoilt ... it has nothing on neighbouring Florence and disappointingly just appeared a transport hub to other more memorable centres ... others we're sure will see it differently including those who choose to live there.

With time on our side we headed for the East Coast, past Ferrera and on to Lido di Scacchi, an Italian style resort mecca supposedly renowned for its' beaches and cycle ways ... apart from the big fish traps it too did not register as a highlight with us, the beach was scummy (similar to what we had found in Barcelona) although that hardly deterred the locals as the beaches just heave with people and umbrellas ... our swim time was spent in the pool. Our 10-15km bike ride to historic village of Comacchio we would have to say was also average (we are now officially over glossy tourist brochures bearing minimal resemblance to reality) and we quickly decided that we were ready to move on-which brings us back to stunning Venice!

Our camp ground in Punta Sabbioni is across the harbour on the peninsular east of Venice - really it's a mini village with 1500 residents and is flash in camping ground standards. It has a water park with 5 pools, slides and is a hit with us all as we cope with temperatures in the 30's and high humidity - the sweat is pouring off us!

Access to Venice is easy with a 2 km bike ride to the local port then a 30 minute ferry into St Marks Square. We have cruised the Grand Canal every day from St Marks Square to Plaza Roma getting the front seats on the open bow ferry for the hour long one way trip. We grabbed a ferry to Murano to see the glass factories - we were fortunate to see a glassblower stretching, pushing, twisting and spinning the hot glass to create a horse - we had forgotten it was Sunday! We spent the evening with Thomas, Isabel, Alexandra & Elice, a Polish family from Bellarus that we met who arrived bearing gifts of Vodka (of course!) and local Polish produce they generously shared with us. Thunderstorms and rain were a welcome relief as all eight of us sat and sheltered under our awning.

Monday we headed back to Venice and wandered the narrow alleyways - the kids had the glass bug and were in and out of the shops. We grabbed a traghetto - the public gondola that cross the canals when bridges aren't available - a steal at 50cents each! We returned to the pool as the temperatures soared and then with an early dinner returned to see Venice by night - our mission was to take a Gondola ride! We spotted Luchino one of 420 gondoliers' in Venice and set off! Luchino had a great sense of humour - when he first introduced himself he said he shared his name with Pavaroti but that was the only thing they had in common - our Luchino made it clear that he only sings alone and in the shower! ... there was to be no serenading on our tour. Luchino also had a striking resemblance to Bruce Willis which had repeatedly been pointed out to him ... the only thing missing he added in secrecy was a wife that looked like Demi Moore.

Back on the Grand Canal with gelato's in hand and under the night lights of Venice we grabbed our night ferry return to St Marks Square and back to Punta Sabbioni - a late night bike ride home with lights.

Today, Tuesday is a catch up/ relax day - washing, swimming and football - GO HOLLAND!

Tomorrow we move on again ... it'll be our final week in Italy ... our destination - Lombardi lakes and Dolomite mountain regions on route to Switzerland next week. We have dropped Poland from our itinerary and in doing so bought ourselves some extra time and alot less mileage for the balance of our European journey - from Switzerland we plan to cross into Austria and continue up to Prague, Berlin and back into Holland for a couple of weeks from w/c 8th August ... booked to return to the UK w/c 21st August. There's still plenty ahead of us to keep us all motivated and excited about the remaining 2nd half of our adventure.

Tonight we are out to dinner to celebrate our 'half way' achievement - it's been pretty bloody awesome thus far ... yehaaa!! ... and then 'GO HOLLAND'!!!

Thanks again for all your return messages which are always appreciated by us all ...

Till our next blog ... it's again ariva derci (over & out) from this Family on OE!