Summer '09: Part Two.

Thurs 23/07/09

We decided to drive to another lake, Lake Como, because apparently it's very pretty and lovely and blah blah blah, which of course it was, as Italy is just generally very pretty. We walked through the town, which was a mixture of markets, little ice creams shops, big clothes shops, and historic buildings. We sat on the bank of the river, eating ice cream (because that's compulsory in Italy) before taking the funicular up one of the mountains.

The funicular is basically just a one carriage train that takes you from the bottom of the mountain to the top. It's quite strange though, because it is built on a diagonal. The best way to describe it is like a stairway that has been turned into a train. Imagine your stairs, with a seat at each end of each step, and windows and a roof, and that's the train. It then travels up a straight path to the top of the mountain, pulled by a pulley system, with no driver or anything. It's basically a ghost train taking you to heaven. Pretty cool.

Looking up from the bottom, we could see that there was a big house at the top of the mountain, which I thought was amazing. How did they get it up there!? So I was in for quite a shock when we reached the top and found an ENTIRE TOWN up there. Fully functioning, with shops, cafés, a post box... It was like being in a real, normal, average town, if you could just forget about the fact that the Cathedral in Como that had seemed so big before was now just a tiny dot far, far below...

We then left Como, and that night we went to a pizzeria near the campsite. My first taste of Italian pizza on the holiday! I had become quite an expert on Italian pizzas during a trip to Tuscany back in 2007, when I had the same type of pizza every day, at different restaurants in different towns. I never got bored of them, even though I only had a margherita pizza every day! The most boring of the lot! The amazing taste certainly didn't disappoint this time round, either...


Fri 24/07/09

It was soon time to leave Lugano behind and embark upon our next adventure. I have to say, I was looking forward to this part of the holiday the most, because we were heading for a place I had always wanted to go, but never thought I'd get to go to, especially this young.

Venice.

I'd heard so many fantastic stories, especially from my Dad who went there over 5 years ago, and now says it is his favourite place in the world.

But first, we had to drive for a few hours to get there. But it didn't take us too long, and we soon found a campsite on the mainland. It was a very full campsite, but we found the perfect space, right on the bank of the lagoon. Across the waves, we could see all of the landmarks of Venice. The bell tower of Saint Mark's, from there looking absolutely tiny. Another great thing about being right on the bank was that there were some HUGE carrier ships going by, and sailing quite close to the bank, so we were very close to them, which was pretty amazing.

We also made friends with some english people staying in a campervan next to us. They were four young kids with their parents, and we soon discovered that we were from the same neck of the woods. The Dad of the family played a swingball tournament with Dora (my Dad's girlfriend's daughter), and she was beating him 4 games to 3 when it got too dark to continue...

The campsite itself was my favourite of all that we stayed at, not just because of the lagoon, but also because it had a bar where they played loads of good music right into the night. My family couldn't hear it from the campervan, but I could from my tent. I love the sound of music and people having fun in the distance. It reminds me of camping when I was younger. It wasn't so good at karaoke time though...


Sat 25/07/09

Our first early morning of the holiday, but we decided that it was best so that we could see as much of Venice as possible. We took the bus to the island, which I enjoyed because I like using public transport, especially in other countries!

Venice wasn't what I expected. It was even better.

It was a lot bigger than I thought it would be. I thought it was really small, with just the main famous square and then a few streets leading off it. I don't know why I ever thought this, because it's pretty much the exact opposite. It's very easy to get lost there... We found the main touristy parts, like St Mark's Square, which unfortunately had some construction work going on in it, so it wasn't quite as spectacular. But we also explored the less touristy places, and found a really nice park to sit and eat the bread we bought from this tiny supermarket.

We also found the most expensive toilets on our travels so far: 1.50 euros EACH! They weren't even very good! Although the cubicles were the size of my bedroom, just with a toilet at one end.

But before this blog turns into a 'Loo Review'...

"Just one Cornetto,

Give iiit to meee..."

We spent a nice evening back at the campsite, playing with the kids from next door, who were all so cute and lovely. They had SO much energy and were constantly laughing... They were also jumping about on the rocks next to the lagoon, which scared me a lot, being the over- imaginative wimp I am... I mean, the youngest was about 1, the oldest was only about 7! We were hoping to play swingball, but the swiss family who were also our neighbours asked if they could play on it and ended up doing so all night... Still, Dora and the Dad from next door managed to finish off their tournament by the light of our campervan's brake light. The Dad ended up winning, but ah well.

I sat for a long time on the rocks by the lagoon, just looking out across it to Venice. It was so beautiful. I will never forget it.

Back to the present, and tomorrow is the day I have been waiting for for the past two years, so I had better get some sleep for it...