Gushing in Garda

I left Venice yesterday morning and it started raining again. I travelled up here to Garda by vaporetto, train and bus and you have got to hand it to the Italians thier transport system is efficient, on time and  a fair price, It cost me less than 20 euros  for the whole trip of around 180 kms.
The rain got worse and worse but hey skin is waterproof and as a Canadian lady said to me "there is no such thing as bad weather, just inappropriate clothing"
Today was beautiful sunshine and I took the opportunity of going to Verona, what a contrast to Venice, less tourists, more room to move and people actually smiled when they took money off me all in all a nice place for a day out. I had a life changing experience in Verona, I discovered Italian ice-cream, my meal plan from now on is a big breakfast followed by lots of visits to gelataria and a light evening meal.
Tonight I went out with the intention of having a light evening meal which did not have tomatoes in it but I happened upon a wine shop which sold wine by the glass and I later found out also sold snacks so after trying three whites and a couple of reds it just enforced my conviction that Pinot Grigiot and Valpolicella are the best easy drinking Italian wines and the pepperoni pizza was pretty good too. They have invited me back for a rematch before I go home so Thursday night should be fun.
Things go downhill tomorrow I am meeting Billy Boy in Peschiera del Garda, I don't think I need to introduce him and Margaret to wine tasting and ice-cream being such world-travellers, report to follow.

Improving all the time.

After yesterday things just had to get better and they did. St. Mark' s Square (SMS) is virtually empty at 8 o'clock in the morning except for the street cleaners and delivery men. I found it enthralling  to see how the infrastructure in Venice works without lorries and delivery vans, there are many and various custom made hand trucks to deliver stuff and take away the dirty linen etc which is all delivered to the nearest point on the canal by a slightly wider version of a British narrow boat . The refuse is even more interesting, all the rubbish is collected in  large mesh, wheeled containers and taken to the bin-barge which picks up the container with a crane, hoists it over the barge and lowers it into the hold where it automatically empties itself. I know what you are thinking "what a spotter"
Anyway after doing a recce to find the Realto bridge ( quite easy when you follow the signs ) I went down to the Maritime Museum well worth a couple of hours if you are a boatie like me. I had another  attempt to get lost and feeling like a rest I jumped on the nearest vaporetto which after a call at the Lido dropped me at Punta Sabbioni, a great place for a lunch stop and about a third of Venice prices. I have overheard tourists complain about waiting for the vaporetto they want but it is best to just jump on the first one that arrives, today I started at SMS then as above, the next vaporetto dropped me at Burano and after walking to Mazzorbo, I caught a lift to Forte Nove and onwards to the Grand Canal and meandered back to my hotel on foot a total of nine and a half hours of adventure.
Tonight I have been to watch Italian opera sung in Italian by Italians,  La Traviata performed at the Scuola Grande di San Teodoro, it was superb.
More soon.

I don't believe it

Harry, Marmalade and I had a great Thursday, we worked on the village garden to get rid of Wednesday night's alcohol then we tidied up the house, had a full fry and made our way to the airport hotel in Wilmslow. After a shower we went up the road to the Vintage Inn had their excellent gammon and chips washed down with a couple of pints of real ale then we turned in to sleep the sleep of the righteous. But while we slept the gods of misery were at work.

We arrived at the airport at 0540 to be told that the flight was delayed until 09.00 eventually taking off at 0915. The flight was fine and sorting out the vaporettos to our new booking on a luxury motor yacht went like clockwork but that was when the gods intervened once again, the boat was out of service and Booking.com had advised me of this by email to my old email address at 0300 while I was in the land of nod. I eventually contacted then and they sent me to a hotel just off St Mark's Square, by the time I had dragged my luggage there through the masses of tourists it was 1730 only to be told that they had no record of the booking. I eventually got sorted with a shoe-box of a room just a spit from St. Marks Square so you can imagine how much that is going to cost. By this time I was beginning to regret travelling to Venice so I headed of away from the tourists and found a local bar where I ordered a pint, the waiter asked if I wanted a medium or a large beer, I looked around and saw that people had either a 0.2 or a 0.4 cl beer in front of them so I asked for a large beer, when it arrived it was a 2 litre stein at17.50 euros! Ouch! However, since then things improved, I took everyone's advice and got lost, in fact I was so lost that I was still walking at 9 pm so I stopped and had a pizza and got directions back to my hotel.
I had been warned that Venice was expensive especially around St Mark' Square but water and Coke in the local mini- market are twice the price of the mini-bar in my hotel room - shocking.
Ah we'll tomorrow is another day.