Verona To Venice - May 22

Fair bit of loud street noises last night so disturbed sleep but that's the way it goes sometimes. Yoghurt and then Vegemite on toast for breakfast again as the offerings are a bit Coles cafetaria style. We finish breakfast and go back to our room only to find that the ket card doesn't work. Julie sorts a replacement key, we finish packing and are pleased to be leaving this hotel chain. We now have about 4 hours or so drive to Verona. Once again very green countryside. So many trucks and trailers heading in both directions. I reckon there are more heavy transport vehicles than cars. The roads are fairly good and we go through a lot of tunnels, some of them kilometres long. All would put our Heysen tunnels to shame.

We have a short stop along the way at a service station, so get to enjoy a chocolate milk and then it's straight to Verona.

There is a large Roman amphitheatre which has a lot of reestoration happening. It holds about 22,000 people and is used for concerts and shows.

We head towards Juliet's balcony. I'm a bit confused as my Shakespeare is somewhat minimal, but I don't think he ever went to Verona, so maybe this isn't really Juliet's house and balcony! However we join the queue to get into the little courtyard and faithfully take our photos.

We then head for the square and Julie finds some little treasures to take home, while VJR scores another trinket that I simply couldn't leave at the stall. (Chances are, they will end up at the Hedley jumble sale but I'm having fun choosing them!) We then head for lunch as we both agree that we want pizza. Turned out that we picked a great spot as the weather turned bad with thunder and lightning and then heavy rain. We sat outdoors under a big cavas umbrella in the centre of the tables.

The weather remains against us after lunch so rather than wander about we head slowly to our meeting point, via a mini mart for bottles of wine, and then with the group head back to our coach, where we then head to Venice. No coaches are allowed into Venice so we take a water taxi to our hotel which is very close to St Marks square. Our luggage is all loaded onto a separate water taxi.

It isn't raining at the time, but certainly more rain was on the way. We book into our room which is very small and we have to get creative on where suitcases can go. The bathroom is very economical on space too. Its only for 2 nights but it would have been nice to have a better room for our final days in Italy. Having done some hand washing, it brought back images of the ensuite Jo and I shared on Marco Polo, and our Chinese laundry days.

We head outside before dinner but it is short lived as it starts raining again. The hotel really is in a great location so I have to remind myself of this when I get frustrated with the small room.

Time for dinner at the hotel where we have a 3 course meal provided. I was happy to stop at the lasagne entree. Back to our room, time for a wine or 2 and then bed. I love Venice and am looking forward to retracing favourite places tomorrow and finding new ones. Won't be going to Murano and have made Julie promise not to let me buy any glasware!