Holy God, July is come and gone and not a word of a blog sorted. Where does the time go!
And
once again I say ´Hut ab´to excellent journalists who get out good
quality print over night - Heck I
even
give
a baby ´Hut ab´ to journalists who get out bad print overnight. I
can get nothing out in a month, never mind over night.
Anyway
the July blog on Venice is ´on
the way´ to being
sorted!
As I said, it all started with the Sunday Telegraph.
Now
being
an Irish person the ´facts´as presented by the Sunday Telegraph may
be a ´bit alternative´ to facts as perceived by moi and
perhaps a proportion of my fellow country persons.
But where the opinions on ´the facts´between myself and
aformentioned newspaper would be 100% unnamimous would be the facts
as discussed in the Sunday
Telegraph´s Travel Section.
The
Sunday
Times Travel
Section is excellent! They have very reliable information on budget
holidays, luxuary holidays, you name it holidays. Whatever
you want to do holidays,
where ever you want to go holidays. As long as it is legal, you can find information on it, and very good
information too, in the Sunday Telegraph Travel Section.
And
this has consistantly been
the case for the last fifty odd years at least; that was when I was
reading the travel section and dreaming about winter holidays in San
Moritz! On
top of that it is always a pleasant read; you really feel like you
want to go to whereever they are writing about - even if you never
wanted to go there before!
And so it was that I came to
the idea in late June of a
trip
to Venice. In
the middle of June this year, I
somehow came accross
a piece from
the Sunday Telegraph Travel Section on good value accomadation in
Venice , written in 2015. Great stuff. And as usual a grand
read.
`But Venice in July` you whail `Venice -full of
tourists and cruise ships, hot, sweaty, crowded, smelly, beautiful
Donna Leon Venice` you say again more than somewhat agast.
But
no gentle reader, not now, not in these times of Covid. Now, I
figured, there would be no tourists, no cruise ships, no crowds, no
smells; no nothing only us and sad Gondoliers ´gondoling´ about in
empty Gondolas! And
that is exactly how it was, including alas the sad Gondoliers
So
here is how things went:
Once
I saw that
we were going in the direction whereby
we in Germany were going to be allowed to travel (with precautions)
to Italy - I started plotting: We
were going to drive to Venice!
First
I went back to the article and read through all the choices. Decided
on one.
Second: I presented the idea of Venice to Romeo H.
along with information on above mentioned accomadation.
Romeo H did not take much persuading God bless him; he saw the
logic
of it all.
But, being a pragmatic sort of human himself,
he asked `And
what about parking? We are not going to Venice if we have to pay a
fortune to park the car?´
He had a point; a brief perusal of parking options in Venice showed the charges were
around the €60 for 24 hours mark.
This apparent set
back was only momentarily; I figured we would not be the only budget
minded people in Europe who ever thought of driving to Venice.
Surely the tourist office in Venice has some suggestions. And they
did. On their website. For €5.00 for 24 hours and a pleasant
ferry ride away from Venice proper. More later.
So off we
set on Friday morning July 10th at 10:15 a.m. - only
days
after travel from Germany to Italy was permitted. There were a few
dead donkeys we could
have encountered, but
did n´t. Not
a one,
thank God. So on we went, and
a beautiful drive it was too.
For
five full hours nothing but tra la tra la. Picnic and sunshine and
tra la tra la. And then more tra la tra la. No traffic indeed nary
a car to be seen on the road. Yep tra la tra la all the way.
The tra la tra abruptly stopped at 15: 52 when we were just over the Swiss/Italien border and 20 miles north of Milan. It was a hot day, and traffic suddenly slowed down to ´crawl mode`. And it stayed there – for two long hours. We eventually started moving again at 17: 50.
Note
to self and the world: Avoid being on the road within 100 miles of
Milan any time of the night or day, but especially on Friday
afternoon of the first weekend where people are allowed to move about
after the easing of restrictions after a pandemic. Let us not say
any more, other than to confirm
we, and the marriage survived.
We had planned to sleep
over about 12 miles before Padua. But after moving again and with
the cool of the evening, and a nice pause with a strong cup of coffee
somewhere after Verona, Romeo H, God bless him, decided he was ready
to drive all the way to Venice. Ö.
And so we arrived at Punta Sabioni at about 9.30 pm, some 11 hours 15 minutes and 679 km after we left Allensbach. More on that later.... much more!
Suffice to say for now, that once we arrived at the somewhat quaint but apparently very safe car park, we were in super holiday mode again.
We could enjoy the view of Venice as we waited for the Vapporito to bring us to the Island of Venice. The journey over to Venice was a breezy delight, even at 10.30 p.m. Arriving at the stop San Zaccaria Pietà, 30100 Venezia VE, Italy some 40 relaxing minutes later.
We were in Venice!
And lads I tell you what! First impressions: Every thing fabulous you imagined about Venice - it was:
Small streets, and then very small streets, lots of quaint little bridges, beautiful old buildings. In spite of dark alleys and apparent dead ends that were not, one felt quite safe. In the whole time I was in Venice, day or night I always felt safe. There were Donnna Leon type views around every corner. - In fact I am quite sure the little art shop on the corner of the Fondamenta on which we stayed, was part of a Donna Leon programme. I cannot be sure, but if you, dear reader care to check out this link, you may find prof of my hypothesis. https://www.theveniceinsider.com/donna-leon-brunetti-venice
Anyway after a very relaxed stroll through small alleys and plazas, I am proud to say we found our way ´reasonably well´ to our accommodation B&B San Marco - on Fondamenta S. Giorgio dei Schiavoni, 3385. Our host Alice graciously agreed to wait up for our 11.30 p.m. arrival.
Our apartment was just as I had hoped: quaint, quite and cool. Bedroom windows the size of doors lending a light and airy feel to the generously proportioned apartment. The sixty steps up the four flights in the cool hallway did not bother. There was only one issue: Romeo H. felt however the ´shower stall needed getting used to`. I could live with it no bother. We were more than happy with our accommodation. An added bonus, and a very nice bonus too: Alice the host lived one floor up and was often to hand for tips and suggestions for our daily outings.
And so dear readers - all three of you, I take a pause now; I enjoy writing my ´Venice Diary´, but in no rush to finish it. I bring myself right back there when I write. And that is not a bad place to be!
The last leg of the journey after getting off the A47 and driving onto the SS14 in the direction of Punta Sabioni was not fun.
And so we got to Punta
Sabioni at about 9:30 p.m.
More on the last leg of the drive to Punta Sabioni later.
Well to be honest, the
1) Parking at Marco Polo Airport, with free schuttle from carpark to Marco Polo Airport. Every few minutes. Journey three minutes.
https://www.parcheggiomarcopolo.com/en/book-now/
Cost: €30.00 for six days. Yes, that is correct: 30 Euros. Six days. Covered carpark.
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