We stayed at Camping Jolly- around 20 minutes from the center of Venice. It was a great camping ground with a fabulous pool and sun lounges and great facilities just not the food from the restaurant. Our first night here we went to the restaurant in the camping ground as they gave us a voucher for pizza and a drink for a discounted price. It was the worst pizza i have ever eaten in my life, and we are in Italy. all it was cheese- not even mozzarella, with 5 bits of weird sausage meat on it- no sauce, just that. so terrible. we won’t be eating there again. at night there is a dj that sets up round the pool until the pool shuts at 10pm- so we listened to that as we didn’t enjoy our pizza. Went to sleep listening to the rain on the tent- it was glorious. I really feel like I am finally on holiday being in a camping ground. We woke up to sweltering heat inside our tent and had to quickly open the door and window. We are on the end of the row, so the sun hits our tent and we have no shade. Me and steph got out of there pretty quickly and went for a swim in the big outdoor pool. it was magnificent- such a great way to start the morning. we then sunbathed on the sun lounges for a while. To get into Venice we have to catch a bus put on by the camp (great service)- the only one available when we went to book was at three- which gave us plenty of time to be at the pool. We booked our Greek island ferries. We are going from Athens to santorini- and rose you are right you can ride a donkey there. And then we are off to ios and from ios back to athens. The last ferry to Athens we are travelling business class.- as they were the cheapest seats left- how posh of us :). We caught the bus and then you have to get on a people mover- which is a train with two cabins and takes about two minutes. When we got off the people mover- we saw Venice for the first time and it was lovelier than what I had seen in movies- one of my favourite places so far. we walked the streets for several hours taking in the beauty of the place- I enjoyed that it isn’t like being in a city and you can walk slowly through the streets, not knowing where we are going or what we wanted to see, and just enjoying getting lost. We found a gelato bar- I had extra dark chocolate and a scoop of raspberry sorbet- sooo yummy. i don’t ever like chocolate ice cream but this was heaven. We noticed a sign pointing to st marks basilica so started to follow these- the signs turned in spray painted signs and words written on the walls- but we kept following, no one else was going this way. We ended up down a dark alley way, jess was convinced that someone is playing a trick on tourists but we kept going and finally got there. i think it was a handy shortcut. the basilica is enormous and very stunning to look at. st marks square is full of people and looks over a large cannel with all the gondolas lined up ready to take people. the cafes had jazz bands playing. it was a great atmosphere. by the time we left the square it was 6.30 and we had to back for the bus at 8.30 and had no idea how long it would take. we hurried along the different streets and past the cannels and quickly went into the supermarket to by tea. We got a hot chicken and salad. we rushed back to the people mover and ended up getting to the bus stop at 7.50- so had a little wait. we got back and had our chicken sitting at the picnic tables across from the pool with an Australian couple from busabout. They are coming today with us to go on a gondola ride. this morning went for another swim in the pool with steph. today we are getting the 3pm bus into Venice and the 9.30pm bus home. tomorrow is the big ferry ride to greece :)
