Venetian ventures, Comacchio capers, ravishing Ravenna, Ferraris

A campsite was going to be the best way for us to see Venice, I eschewed the one with the swimming pool and shorter trip to Venice for one on the Brenta Riviera which Lonely Planet said was good for cycling around the renaissance villas. Lonely Planet let me down, the cycle paths were actually roads and the area was neglected and rundown. We cycled past villas that were very faded but obviously were top shelf real estate in their day.

We only visited one - Villa Widman, was not too far from the camp and probably a lesser example of the villas.The garden would have been lovely in its time and the reception rooms had some impressive Venetian glass chandeliers and frescos. When the villas were in their heyday Venetian society members would sail on barges up the river to stay in their villas for the summer.

A bus just outside the camp shuttled us into Venice, where we caught a vaporetto (little ferry) to San Marco square, lining up for a long time to enter the Basilica. I had forgotten my shoulder-covering scarf and had to wear a 1 euro tyvek brown square. I saved it for a makeshift groundsheet. The floor in the basilica was a series of lumps and dips – an obvious sign that the building is sinking.

Venice

Stuart’s patience was stretched to the max in my quest for a leather shoulder bag, as if I don’t have some at home! I finally chose a Smurf-blue bag that would fit my camera, waterbottle and sunglasses. We had bought a two day ticket each for the public transport in Venice and apart from the bus trips we used if on the water ferries to get about the islands that make up Venice.

We hadn’t made it to Murano previously, which is famous for its glassware, so our second day was to visit Murano and Burano. The day was very hot and sunny and at first the glass displays in the shops were exciting – lots of interesting designs and some shops made you feel dizzy with the colours and displays but after a while it got all a bit much. I would have loved to take a selection home but the transport would be a problem plus it was all fairly pricey.

Doges Palace

Ambulance, Venice

Murano didn’t offer a lot of restaurants for lunch but we chose one by the canal and I had a Campari and soda, served in a colourful local glass, as an aperitif before a nice ravioli dish of spinach and walnuts. Stu had a salad, this is a first and he thought it had made him thinner immediately. The sun tired us out but there was still Burano to explore, it was quite a long ride standing on the vaporetto from Murano to Burano.

Burano

Burano

Burano was an explosion of colours set against a deep blue sky. All the little terraced houses had been given paint jobs from the vivid section of the paint chart – any colour but bland. There were stalls selling lace which was the traditional craft of the area, I found a mask in the shape of a cat face to complement the two other masks I bought in Venice a few years ago. Another item to try and stuff into the Smurf handbag/satchel.

The vaporettos (or should it be vaporetti) work to a strict schedule, tying up, directing tourists and shoving off in a minute or two – all conducted with a lot of wharf bumping and gear graunching (Stu says they can’t graunch as they have hydraulic gearboxes – sounds like gear graunching and cavitation to me.) The canal water was churned up with private water taxis, delivery boats, tradesmens’ boats and even police and ambulance jostling for space. A very busy city both on the waterways and in the little lanes and backstreets that were linked by canals. Time to head off.

Burano

The road to Comacchio was very straight, it must have been Roman – it looked like someone got a ruler out and marked it on the map. Comacchio is a beautiful town on the Po Delta, on the eastern coast just south of Venice . It developed across a number of islands and is now joined by bridges, making canals the feature of the town. For some reason they had plastic decoy ducks in the canals along with a few imitation boats. The town featured brick as the preferred building material, for houses, canals bridges and churches which is a contrast to all the plaster towns we have been through. Incredibly hot, devoid of trees the town looked like it should have been in North Africa somehow.

Comacchio

I had my first experience of a huge Italian holiday park after leaving Comacchio, we went to the coast and had no idea what the campsite was like until I had gone through the lengthy registration process and they lifted the barrier arm. We were so far away from reception it justified a bike ride. There were campers that had filled their sites with more stuff than you could shake a stick at. Some covered their whole site with a canvas roof that had a large overhead fan suspensed in the middle circulating the air. We were placed opposite the family swimming pool with music pumping, that stopped at 6.30 but at 9.00pm a camp entertainment and karaoke started which was still going at middnight despite a clearly stated camp rule that said quiet was to prevail between 1 and 3 pm and after 11 pm.

The next morning we walked to the beach which was mainly covered in umbrellas and beach loungers for rent, I had forgotten that beaches in Europe are not free. It looked like a couple of oil platforms were offshore, perhaps they unloaded boats? A local chatty man who had the same amount of English as I had Italian, took a photo of Stuart and me. It was a little odd as Stuart was standing behind a wall, a couple of feet lower than me. While duly admiring the photograph, Stuart said he looked like a little person and the chap said – ah in Italy that is normal – the women are the bosses and the man does what he is told.

Ravenna had rave reviews so we were keen to visit. There was a spot for us in a carpark – Stuart did a bit of pruning climbing our little ladder to sort an overhead tree but all ok. We bought a ticket for 5 UNESCO sites that held murals in churches or former churches, some dated back to the 4^th century. Incredible mosaics on the ceilings depicted religious scenes, I am immune to zealous religious art but these mosaics were in a different league. Tiny little tiles in deep jewel like colours and using a lot of gold, made up the murals. We had visited the basilica in San Marco in Venice and admired murals in the same style but these were a much better experience. The light that filtered through the upper windows cast a soft golden glow inside the churches. Some window panes looked like they were made of slices of agate. 

Ravenna market

The centre of Ravenna was gorgeous with lots of lovely shops and attractive squares that hosted market stalls selling upmarket garden and household items, and lots of al fresco cafes.

After sharing a 3 flavour gelato we walked back to the truck and drove to Imola and found the aire in front of the motor racing track where there was a motorbike race going on. Luckily it stopped after an hour. Stuart craned his neck to see the action and sniff the petrol but was out of luck. 

As we were so close to the Ferrari museum we hopped on the autostrada and crawled for hours in a Saturday traffic jam to the museum near Modena (think balsamic vinegar). The visit to the museum was all over quite quickly, there were more Ferraris per square foot in the street than we had ever seen before.

It is all rather hot and dry and a spell in the hills is called for – how about the Appennine Mountains that border Tuscany?