Day 28 – Venice

The girls were excited to see Venice today and as a result we had all woken up reasonably early to get the bus in. Unfortunately, everyone else in the campsite must have thought this too as there was a large queue of people at the bus stop waiting. When the bus came, we were all outside one door but the 3 girls had moved to a different one where it filled up and they couldn’t get on. We hadn’t realised until we drove away and saw them at the stop still…

When we arrived in Venice, my girlfriend and I sat on a wall to wait for the girls to come in the next bus and watched two American families getting emotional, literally crying, because they were all leaving and going home now. They had obviously made best friends and even the children were distraught. I wonder if we would do that when the girls leave?

Somehow the girls had walked past us and instead of looking for us, they follow the crowd and ended up down one of the busiest streets in Venice. Thankfully we found each other and we decided what we would do today. One of the girls mentioned about the smallest street in Venice so that was our first stop. Using google, I found it straight away but it was very far away from where we were. The girls were walking so slowly that my girlfriend tried to lose them in the maze of streets and canals. We all came together though for the smallest street where you couldn’t walk down it with a straight body. We took some pictures and continued on through the deserted streets up here, obviously tourists don’t visit this part of the city.

On our way back to the main centre, the girls were stopped by a Chinese couple asking for directions. Of course they hadn’t a clue either and called me over. I must have looked like the Italian local guide showing the girls around as I knew exactly where they should go (I had looked at the map only seconds before) and directed them by pointing and on the map. I reckoned I would be a good tour guide and continued my tour for the girls.

Some of us wanted to stop for a drink, but nobody was sure if they wanted a hot or cold drink, or even some food. Finally, we made the choice to just stop at the restaurant. Immediately, the waiters had brought us cutlery and bread before we told them that we were just for drinks. All the girls used the bathroom and as it was very expensive, only one of us had a €5 coffee because she felt bad that we used their restaurant for the toilet. The waiter was either confused that we had only order one drink between us or very annoyed, maybe a bit of both?

After listening to two Donegal men in the restaurant beside us and trying to work out where they were from, we walked a bit more, and more and more. Everything that should have been seen was seen and before visiting San Marco, we stopped for a coffee break. Some of us were adventurous and I had ordered this cold chocolate cappuccino. It was unreal. I have never actually tasted anything as good as this – it was like frozen chocolate ice cream with cappuccino, a hint of vanilla, topped with cream and smooth milk – the contrast between the chocolate and cream was divine, but enough about my coffee, we visited St. Mark’s and took lots of pictures before looking for somewhere to eat.

The annoying thing about Venice was that we could have stayed for longer, see more and experience more, if we had the money that was. It was so expensive and we were already on a budget. It was also hard to find a restaurant that wasn’t commercialised for tourists and had reasonable prices so we got the bus back to the camp site.

The girls needed to get money for the bus in the morning so at the campsite, we asked if there was an ATM nearby. They told us that there was one just down the road. When we got to ‘just down the road’ we couldn’t find any and we asked a local sipping his beer in a bar. He gave us the same answer so we walked more and still had no luck. Again, we had to stop and ask. This time we asked two young girls, maybe around the age of 16, walking their dog. Their English was perfect and they told us where it was. We all felt like we failed in life…imagine an Italian coming up to us back home and asking us for a cash machine in Italian!

Getting our money from the ATM, we went back to the campsite, I charged my phone and we went for drinks and chips in the small restaurant. We must have had a few drinks (and finished off the bottles of wine we brought from Acqui Terme) because we had ended up fighting over our old school teachers and how the mannerisms of children had changed, as well as the usual arguments that occur over a bottle a wine.

Despite the arguments, we had surprisingly all bonded over the last few days and it would be sad to see them leave. The girls were planning to go Greek Island hopping now for two weeks and had to leave very early (although in the end, the girls had stayed in Corfu to avoid the financial Greek crisis that was happening at the time). For all you dedicated blog readers, this would be the last time we will see them and you’ll have to cope with just the two of us now…