life on the other side of the planet: Verona to Venice

So, the next few posts will all be about Bella Italia as we spent nearly a week exploring this insanely beautiful place!

Starting with Venice (with a stop off in Verona)

So after the usual start to the day of packing up the tents by some ungodly hour of the morning (7.15 everything but the cook tent had to be on the bus...) we slept our way through to the Italian boarder, which we didn't realise we had crossed, so when we stopped off at a petrol station for some snacks, and tried (and failed) to speak our non-existent french to the person behind the till who was really grumpy. We later realised this was because we had spoken french to an Italian, so their bad mood what quite understandable..

So once we all understood what country we we in, the excitement levels rose as we made our way into Verona. Now this place was beautiful, full of history and things that tourists love. But I feel like I didn't really enjoy it as much as I could have because it was 40degrees, and with everything being marble, there was no escaping the heat (except for gelato and going into air-conditioned shops..)

We walked past a mini Colosseum-like building and battled the mass of tourists to see Juliet’s balcony (built after the play so that there was somewhere for the tourists to flock to, and it definitely worked).

We weren't in Verona for very long, and everyone was almost too happy to get back on the bus which had the air-con going full blast – and would continue to do so for the remainder of the trip.

Juliette's balcony, and hundreds of tourists crammed into a tiny little courtyard.. Great fun in scorching heat!

Proof that I'm not just being dramatic!

We arrived in Venice in the afternoon and put up the campsite in the heat – but never fear, there was a swimming pool at the campsite! We had a massive dinner cooked for us by the restaurant that was on the campsite, and by the end of it none of us could walk properly, and we spent the next hour in a food coma. The bar that night was where the entire campsite was that night, including our entire tour, and so we all spent the night dancing to the music (and getting way too excited when the wakeup song camp on, so up went the duck hands so we could find each other and have our own little party for the duration for that song.

I called it a night pretty early compared to everyone else because the bar was so hot that when you went outside into the 35degrees it felt like it was air-conditioned...

The next morning we were up early to head into Venice, and while I was really excited to go, some were feeling a little fragile after the night before. Poor Marcel woke up 2 minutes before we were leaving so he grabbed his “bus bag” and jumped onto the coach. The only problem his bag had everything (blankets, pillows, the works) except for shoes.. So he had to walk around venice in what was probably 40degrees, hungover and with no shoes...

We had our usual walking tour of the city and then were left to run free, well when I say run I mean walk at a slow pace because it was way to hot to even think about running anywhere. Most of us had chosen to do the gondola optional, and it was really cool – there was a nice breeze on the canals..

After the gondola ride we got some pizza for lunch, and then tried to find our way back to the train station that we had to go to so we could get back to the bus. I didn't find this too hard because there were signs everywhere that pointed you in the right direction (it was made easier because we stopped off for gelato and found a place where you could get five scoops for 3,90euros!) So we eventually made our way onto the bus and then back to the campsite where I spent the afternoon in the pool, and then had an amazing dinner of gnocci (!) and then just relaxed for the evening because it was too hot to do anything else!