Saturday – end of week 2

I haven’t written our blog for 3 days now, so I’ve got some catching up to do. I’m sitting on the balcony of our hotel in Venice, the Locanda Ovidius, which is about 75m from the Rialto Bridge (which I’m looking at), typing away and watching all the gondolas, water taxis and public ferries go by. This morning we got up early and there were lots of barges delivering goods to all the restaurants near the bridge. Other types of water born craft we’ve seen are fire, police and ambulance, couriers, rubbish trucks, the post man – everything is done by boat.

Saturday was our last day in Bellagio. The weather did fine up after the storm and we went out for a pizza dinner on our final night. After the storm, Saturday dawned beautifully clear again – it seems to be that way every second day. We were up early, packed and ready to go by 9:00am. The first part of the drive from Bellagio to Lecco was again a narrow windy road – marginally easier than the Como to Bellagio road, but made more difficult by the number of cyclists we encountered around Lecco. Being a Saturday morning, they were all out riding in groups, which made passing very difficult. After Lecco, we drove the back roads to Bergamo, which was very busy on a Saturday morning, before hitting the motorway to Venice. The first part to Verona, was very boring – again flat and straight, with no surrounding hills, so nothing to look at. After Verona however, the country side got hillier and there were hilltop towns and mile after mile of vineyards.

When we get to Venice, we drove down the 4 km causeway to the Tronchetto car park. From there we carried our bags to the car ferry (despite being back packs, they don’t have any of the straps any more, as we cut them out to save weight and space – we figured we’d never use them as backpacks again, but need to use them because they fit in the boot of the convertible and still let us put the roof down). This is the longest distance we have had to carry bags ever. Fortunately, Tronchetto is the first stop for the ferry, so we were able to get a seat for us and our bags – I was carrying both the back packs with a day pack on my back and Anne was carrying her own day pack and organising tickets and figuring out where to go. We’ve bought a 3 day pass for the ferries, so we can hop on and off whenever we like and they will even take us out to Murano.

Our instructions for getting to the hotel were very good, so we found it easily, which was great because it was a really hot day. The hotel is brilliant and our room is one of only 4 in the hotel that has a view out over the Grand Canal. It’s also a very large room, which from what we read on trip advisor, is a rare thing in Venice.

We had lunch after checking-in, at a sidewalk restaurant beside the Grand Canal overlooking the Rialto Bridge in front of the hotel, then went for a walk around the back streets and canals of Venice. We decided to have Rosé with our lunch, something we learnt in France – it was stunning! Venice is a great city to just wander around. Despite having a 3 day ferry pass, we’re not using it very much because we usually take the ferry one way and then walk back from where ever we get to. The shops in Venice are amazing too with lots of masks, Murano glass, jewelry, all the up market fashion stores, and even a Ferrari shop with Michael Schumacher’s 2002 car sitting in the window. Our walk went in a couple of directions, but ultimately ended up in St. Marks square, with its Basilica, Doge’s Palace, Bridge of Sighs, Campanile etc.

Dinner that night was at the same restaurant that we had lunch – a long drawn out affair from 8:30 till midnight – much good conversation to be had when dining beside the Grand Canal.