A Magical and Mystical City

All the way to Venice, the landscape's very flat with wet lands and marshes. Finally, the long causeway across the Venetian Lagoon leads to probably one of the most romantic cities in the world, Venice. Before visiting the World heritage city and its many landmarks, we needed to set camp at Camping Jolly, an ACSI discounted campsite in Marghera, on the edge of Venice. It was the only campsite opened (we stayed there on 11 & 12 November) - most campsites in Italy shut from October until March for the season.

The marshes along the road to Venice.

The causeway to Venice across the Venetian Lagoon.

After a couple of hours - time to fill up our water tank, plug in the van and all our equipments which needed charging and a bit of tidying - we were ready to discover Venice, its many narrow streets, bridges and canals. We cycled it all the way there and back - there's no cycling lanes and we had to cycle on a main highway too - it was a bit scary at times, especially on the way back when the curb disappeared at the end of the causeway and our only option was to walk through the gutters / debris and even rats alongside the main road. A good thing Jamie didn't tell me he had heard and seen some rodents as I probably would have freaked out!

The cycle ride was worth it though! I still can't believe we went there - like probably a lot of you reading this, since I was little I'd heard and learnt about Venice. I have to look at the pictures and pinch myself. Enough said now, just have a look at the pictures below:

An amazing shop idea - the "Reading Room".

One of the many canals.

I just had to take a picture - a tableau of colours.

As we'd set off quite late for our ride, we just walked around through the many alleyways and bridges discovering Venice by night. We grabbed a cheap and delicious pizza slice to go along the way from one of the many stalls and had time for "una birra e un bicchiere di vino rosso" ("a beer and a glass of red wine"). The day after we were ready to see more and visit some of the famous places such as St Mark's square. This time, we traded our bikes for the local bus!