Venice

We kept our camping spot in Verona and took a day trip through to Venice on the train. Our slow start, plus just missing a bus and train, meant we didn't get there till 2 - but hey, there's not that much to see is there?

Our main achievement was finding the only free museum in Venice; there wasn't much to see inside but it was cool on a hot day and it had toilets! We moseyed on getting generally lost on purpose and soaking up the atmosphere. Didn't do much else, but of course hit all the famous spots and got all the appropriate tourist pics.





Ben also managed to have the local drink: Sprizz Aperol. Bitter.


Next day we headed to Slovenia, where we are now. We'll post more about that in a bit, but as a summary: it's beautiful & friendly and everyone has nice gardens. Slovenia in Bloom must be a really hard-fought competition.

Verona

So Joanna decided it was her turn to drive, at least halfway. She got the exciting tunnels and bridges over the sea, that descended into dull motorway. Ben got the exciting back-roads. As we approached Verona the storm clouds gathered, and the winds picked up. It all looked very portentous... But we drove in anyway. It's an incredibly pretty city. We did our usual thing of going straight to the tourist office to get the city map and find out where the camping is, and after quickly posting you about San Remo we headed up a small hill to the campsite. There were some young hippy type folk running the joint (we're getting very jealous about how many languages everyone else seems to speak), and they were very helpful. A very cool campsite if one ever goes to Verona. Some what higgledy-piggledy, camp spots above each other, little terraces and wondrous views over the city:

We had a quick wander down into the old city and found some good city life for our dinner.
Next day we set off to explore Verona properly. We started at the Arena - the world's third biggest and possibly best preserved Roman Amphitheatre. We bought the "Verona Card" on the way in which means cheap entry into all the main attractions - be sure to investigate this if you are taking a trip here. Stage crews were setting up for the evening's performance of Aida - so we couldn't have a good dig around ... but we felt like proper Roman's sitting on the top seats watching the world go by.



Next to Juliet's house - it was owned by the Capello family who are thought to have been Shakespeare's Capulet clan. It's well preserved but really it's mainly good for the photo opportunities ...

Also hit the medieval castle (with 14th century art museum) and the Roman theatre close to our campsite. So we made good use of the Verona Card!

Meanwhile, back at the campsite the nice hippies had secured us tickets to the evening's performance of Aida. However, they neglected to tell us to take our own refreshments for the 4 hour show or pillows to sit on ... stone can be quite tough on the posterior after a while! Anyway, the show was spectacular and well worth the €50.


Around 22 thousand people squeezed into the arena for the performance ... most of them in the cheap seats with us!

After our late night at the Opera, the next day was spent lazily by Lake Garda, sunbathing and enjoying the views ... it's a tough life.

Eastern Spain Smells - but not as much as San Remo!

In Spain's case it's quite literal, from Murcia up. Indeed the day we left Barcelona was the day the campsite was getting a little too fruity. And we made it to San Remo last night, over 500 miles for the wee Clio, which coped admirably. But by that point it was getting late, so we popped into San Remo just in Italy. We found the local campsite, and thought a bungalow might be convenient for a quick overnighter... €89! Okay, camping... €45! well, it's too late to find anywhere else... But then we found it was like this:

But too late to change... Admittedly the bathrooms did have gold-plated taps (well, not quite), but still, ouch.

On the plus side I got to continue the drinking challenge with limoncello in a restaurant (which served very nice pizza):

PS: Oh no ... the dreaded vest (singlet) has beeen found ;0)

In an update on the drink challenge, pastis & champagne were missed in France due to drink-driving laws, and the fact that service stations don't seem to sell them. Beer & ordinary wine, sure...
And Spain, well we've still got the Cava - it was meant to be popped with a Team NZ win in Valencia, but those dang Swiss got in the way. Sherry... well don't believe all those UK Tapas restaurants saying sherry has come back into fashion in Spain...