Certaldo to Venice

We said goodbye to Glen and Jeff today - they were leaving to fly from Bologna to Paris to catch a flight back to Australia - and we were heading off to Venice. I had calculated that we would have time to stop in Padova for a few hours, but that didn't quite work out.

We did get to redeem the horrible Autogrill experience we had on our trip back from Cinque Terre and managed to find a gigantic Autogrill. We had read a review where the lady was waxing lyrical about how great the Autogrills were (giant roadside restaurants/fuel stop). We only stopped for fuel and the loo, but the food at least looked edible this time around.

We spent a good chunk of the journey designing out new front yard and fancy chicken coop with room for 5 chickens that we are going to build when we get back home, including the yabbie breeding pond, the productive garden and research on some grape vines. Short of getting a goat, I think we have just managed to channel Tom and Barbara from The Good Life (1970s British comedy for the youngsters). We don't have a "Margo" living next door, which will be helpful to the construction ideas coming to fruition.

Once we got across the bridge to Venice itself, we parked the car. Having rationed our gear into a backpack and our day packs, we decided to ditch the idea of spending a fortune on the vaporetto, and walked the 30 minutes to our new AirBnB accommodation. It was an easy walk and given we will do the same to get back to the car, we have also saved ourselves €60. Bargain!

We ditched the gear and headed straight out for a walk along Fondamenta Zattere al Ponte Longo which starts pretty much just outside our accommodation. Our front gate adjoins a lane next to a gate onto the campus of Università Ca' Foscari so we had a bit of a short cut through to get to the water.Read more