For any Venice romantics out there, here is a 33 sec video of motoring under the Rialto Bridge.

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Abbiamo una incidente ( We had an incident)

A minor disaster struck out little expedition a few days ago. We were packed up, on the road to Croatia, stopped at a supermarket to pick up essential Italian supplies as we headed into the unknown (in particular cheap beer), headed back to our car to find it surrounded by numerous Nigerian lads (probably 8) and 1 security officer. The boys had seen our car being broken into and had halted the robbery. We actually lost nothing but Frank Sonata (our Hyundai) suffered a broken lock and smashed back window.

Frank did very well in fact. He reminds me of that ad in Aus for insurance (it may be NRMA not sure). The one that goes “Can your car protect itself and shows the car door opening and knocking over a thief”. When these thieves picked our lock Frank did not yield. When they smashed the back window they still couldn’t open the door. (Good onya Frank) They were after the suitcase on the back seat which really had nothing in it. This was too big to drag through the smashed window. Probably at this point the thieves were interrupted by the Nigerian boys. The thieves hopped into their Fiat and then couldn’t find their way out of the carpark, however they eventually escaped. Well so the story goes.

We think the Nigerian boys hang around the car parks picking up trolleys to retrieve the 1 Euro deposited in them. It was chaos when we idly strolled into the scene with our bags of shopping. Throughout this episode all I could think was that I needed my camera to take some pictures for the blog. This is how journalists/ reporters must always react. I didn’t get any photos. It was all too quick. I was warned that the blog could take over my life. Blog your days are numbered.

Luckily my Italian has improved a bit as we searched for some way to repair the broken window. Ron assures me that there is no way of replacing the window quickly as Frank is old by European standards. Finding a hardware store was as difficult as anything we have done here. Anyway Ron did a wonderful job and Frank is now patched with perspex sheet and looking not too bad and not leaking. We have lost our central locking though.

Frank with repaired window held in with clothes pegs

So! We lost 2 days for repairs and have decided not to go to Croatia at all and have returned to our really nice campsite near Venice and will head back to England in the next few days. Another day in Venice will not be hard to take.

Venice

What to say about Venice?? My first impressions were that Venice was being loved to death. This is not the busiest time of year and already the town is full of tourists. After some hours of wandering I came to appreciate Venice. We found some quieter areas and really enjoyed the efficiency of the transport system ( vaporetti) and a town with no cars. Fantastic and beautiful, “no theme park creator could up with this result of 1400 years of extraordinary history” from Lonely Planet.

A street in Venice

Cars are killing Europe. The air pollution is poor to very bad on most days especially in Northern Italy. The traffic is not so bad in Italy but a huge problem in UK. When and if cars become a thing of the past then Venice is a good place to look for solutions. Of course not every town can have a canal system but a public transport system that replicates theirs would be a first step in the right direction.

We came to a dead end

San Marco Piazza

From above

Looking at the Duomo from the middle of San Marco Piazza

This clock tell you the time, the moon phase, and the zodiac

A Canavale mask


Sweet shop

The Garbage team loading bags of garbage onto a boat. The Italians like a uniform even the garbos have one.

Gondolier (this one is for you Pam)

Rialto Bridge over the Grand Canal

We really enjoyed Peggy Guggenheim Collection of Modern Art (well not so modern 1900 to 1960s) where we saw some Picasso, Dali, Pollack, Ernst, Moore and many others.

Lastly, pigeons in San Marco Piazza, it's a hard life

Verona

We had a quick stopover in Verona the home of Romeo and Juliet. It is also the home of Nick, Chelsea, and Maya’s great Uncle Marco and Aunt Angela. It was great to stay with an Italian family and whilst communicating was difficult it was a good opportunity to improve my Italian.

Marco, Angela and me

Grandson Pietro and Uncle Carlo

Marco and Angela gave us a quick tour around the Verona district. We went to Borghetti and Lazise on Lake Gardia ending up in Verona for pizza for dinner. We were eating outside in a typical Pizzera when the sky blackened above and we were hailed on for a 2^nd time in a few days- quite dramatic.

Marco and Ron

Marco runs a business in Verona in the building his Grandfather built 100 years ago His grandfather was a wine merchant and this factory was built of stone and marble. Marco’s office is in the bedroom he had as a child. Such continuity doesn’t happen in Australia like this.

Juliet's balcony

A statue of Juliet, it is good luck to rub her breast

Dante

Angela and Marco outside Roman Teatro, it is the 3rd biggest and holds 30,000 people. In the summer opera is performed.

Verona is famous for its rose marble, the streets are paved with it.

The Dolomites

We are in South Tyrol in the Dolomite region which is a mountainous area in Northern Italy bordering Austria. Being here is more like being in Germany than Italy. Laden, a germanic language is dominant and all signs are in 2 languages German and Italian, and some in 3. Everyone is bilingual. The houses are very cute Swiss – german style, flower boxes, wooded shutters and railings, wood piles neatly organised.

Our caravan park entrance

Alpine meadow and mountain backdrop

We have done some great long walks in the most beautiful country including high alpine meadows, pine forest, along raging streams and past waterfalls too many to photograph. We are walking for about 4 hours and regularly climbing 800m. Two hours uphill seems to be our limit but the stairs on the lighthouse walk are going to look piss easy when we get back. We have also been rained and hailed on as well. Every day at about 2pm a storm has come through to wet us. Our wet weather gear has proved adequate, just. I really do like my umbrella which doesn’t really match the trekkers gear.

Pine trees and Ron

We caught one gondola and one chairlift and then walked for about an hour to have coffee and apple strudel in this alpine cafe. It is not possible to drive here. The small ski resort of Compatch / Compaccio has no car access.

Ron has bought some walking poles. Everyone has them here. He thinks he is pretty special and we both think they should be sold with safety goggles for the owner’s partner. Seriously they seem to make him go faster and take some of the strain of his knees.

Ron is dangerous with poles

One of the walks was a representation of the Station of the Cross (12 I think??). Every couple of kilometers there was a monument depicting the next station. I particularly liked this crucifix made from a few sticks we found on another walk. Religious monuments are very common.

Alpine cow which live in small houses all winter

Below is short video of finch feeding on dandelion seed.

The background noise is a raging stream. This has lost some colour in the copying, this bird was a brilliant rose colour.

Female finch feeding nearby

The Po Delta (more Flamingos)

The Po Delta turned out to be an even better bird watching place than The Camargue. It covers a huge area. Unfortunately we only had 3 days. We were in the south and didn’t even manage to make it to the Po River but saw a great diversity of ecosystems, salty mudflats, salty lagoons, fresh water lagoons and littoral forests.

Flamingos in the Po Delta

There were many flamingos. They only arrived in the delta 15 years ago. Now there is a second type of Flamingo which has just showed up in the past two years – only two pairs. Also saw African bee eaters, grey heron, rose heron, great egret (like in NZ), black crowned night heron, grebe (2 sorts), hoopoe (very exciting) , pygmy cormorant as well as all the birds I saw in The Carmargue. A lot of the water birds had young. We found one nesting area of stilts, black headed gulls, Mediterranean gulls, and red shanks all with young.

African Bee eater

Pygmy Cormorant

Black crowned night heron

Nesting bird colony

A Pigeon nesting near our caravan

Also saw many coypu in the freshwater lagoon. These beaver like animals were introduced to Europe from Sth America for fur. They are now considered a pest in most of their range. (Wikipedia)

Coypu is an animal like a beaver

Comacchio

We visited historic town Comacchio, a smaller version of Venice with many canals and cute bridges, but no people. It is famous for 1 bridge that crosses 3 canals.

Comacchio

Tre ponte

View from Tre ponte

Also saw a real archaeological dig with some bones and ancient boat.

Digging up bones, these are human bones

The whole site

The history of the area is fascinating with the local people involved with eel fishing for hundreds of years. Under various administrations Rome, and local municipalities they were forbidden to fish so a lot of poaching went on. We took a boat out to an old fishing station and saw old fish traps. They still trap fish today using the same techniques but with concrete and plastic instead of timber and reeds.

Fish traps

Fishing station in the middle of the lagoon

We also had some really good fish dinners. Our campsite was great, well organised, friendly and we were the only non Italians there. We could take away a mixed grilled fish plate from the Camping restaurant- a totally civilised country.

Adria Camping mixed grilled fish take away, a meal for one??

We have come across some very funny English translation. Here is just one example.

The Direction is a translation from Direzione which is Administration.


Pick the odd one out

(It's a duck)

Pick the odd one

(It's Ron pulling silly face)