Just one Cornetto

I mentioned before that one of my university friends, Teresa, was working briefly in North Italy while we were there, and we’d arranged to meet up in Verona. Teresa and I were part of a group of six females in the same year, in the early 80s, reading Economics at Bath. We hooked-up early in our first year, and stayed friends all the way through. We even tried to share a house in our second year, but the landlady pulled it from the rental market over the summer. Apart from one, we are pretty much in touch today, in some shape or form.

As a young graduate, Teresa went on holiday to Portugal and fell in love with a military, medical student. She married him, and has lived there ever since. We last met up at a university reunion, but chat regularly on social media. She teaches English to adults, and was in Italy running oral examinations with students.

As we were all catching trains into Verona, Richard and I met her at the railway station. We strolled into Verona and had a coffee, then walked on down to the river, where we found a nice bar with a terrace overlooking the water, and the Roman settlement on the hill across the way.

Teresa and Alix

We ordered Prosecco and nibbles, and stayed there. It was so lovely to catch up. Poor Richard; much of the conversation was catching up and remembering events. We hope to go and see her in the new year, if we can organise our days.

View from the lunch bar

Verona is a beautiful city, although we didn’t see too much of it this time. We’d visited before in the early 90s, and spent a weekend exploring. It has changed quite a lot from what I remember, and is now full of designer shops. Or perhaps I just didn’t notice the back then.

Dinner was a delicious pizza back at our hotel in Peschiera del Garda, sitting outside watching the world go by. And then Sunday arrived, and it was time to head off to Venice.

When you imagine Venice, your mind pictures canals, stunning architecture, gondolas and gondoliers of course. Frank Muir once said that an intellectual was someone who could hear the William Tell overture without thinking of the Lone Ranger. But I defy anyone of my era to see gondolas without singing, “Just One Cornetto”.

What you don’t think about, however, is car parking. What were we to do with the Audi? We researched it: there are open car parks on the main land, from where you can cross the bridge by train or bus. That felt a pain to be honest.

Another option was to drive to the main railway station and park there, again in purpose-built car parks. This was appealing as it was only a 15-20-minute walk to our hotel. We read the reviews, nearly all of them were great, but there are some about the cars being broken-into, and being stripped of belongings. Hmm. Ok, cars get broken into, but we had stuff in there for the boat. Obviously, we would take any valuables, but it was the things that we couldn’t replace easily such as three months’ worth of contact lenses each. We couldn’t carry everything like that.

Eventually, we found a multi-story on the island of Tronchetto, which offered locked, cage-parking within, for an extra fee. We booked it (and had to pre-pay!). Reception sent us an email with a location pin. We drove around, and found what we thought was the car park, and entered it. And that’s when the fun started. There was a sign on the wall saying “Secure Parking” – great, that was us! We took a ticket as we entered, and we drove up to the top. We didn’t see any more signs, so we drove back down at the other end, where we still didn’t see any signs.

We agree to exit the car park, when Richard starts telling me about someone who got charged hundreds of euros for just doing that. Frankly, that was not helping. We got through the exit barrier for free. Phew!

And then we drove back out the way we came, plugged-in the exact, precise location of the secure carpark into the Satnav, and ended up in a piece of open ground, with a small fenced area inside. That didn’t look like inside, secure parking to us.  Leaving Richard in the car, I walk back to the car park, and ask at a snacks kiosk if there are any other possible sites. No.

Back at the car, Richard tells me he’s read the email properly, and we have to hold a QR code (in the email) under a QR code reader at the entrance barrier to said car park. Okay…

At the entrance, there are two mini-towers at the entrance barrier. As these are my side of the car, I hold the phone under what could be a QR code reader on the first tower. Nothing happens. The driver tells me that I’m using the wrong tower. So, he edges forward, and I try the next one. The driver then tells me that I’m not doing it properly. “Expand the QR code!”. “It is bloody expanded!!”. We exchange a series of helpful and loving words. I can still see the entrance sign saying “Secure Parking”.

I press the “HELP” button on the tower.

And a friendly and helpful voice says “Si?”, followed by “I am coming”. A couple of minutes later, a young man on a bicycle turns up. He tells us it is a stupid system, and that the guys that developed it had probably never been in a car park in their lives, but had become very rich as a result. He said he would open the barrier for us, using our QR code, and then told us to drive all the way up to the top of the car park, and all the way back down at the far end, where he would be waiting for us. He would lead us to the cage.

It took him a few goes to open the barrier on the first tower, with our QR code. We drove all the way up to the top, and all the way back down. And there he was. And there was the cage, which would take about six cars. He unlocked and slid-open the gates, and waited patiently while we got all our stuff together. I could have kissed him. Instead, I tipped him €5.

From here, we took the little elevated, electric train to a piazza, and walked to our hotel over a couple of bridges. It’s a bit of a slog, and we were very pleased to arrive. We had a delightful, dual-aspect room overlooking the Grand Canal. We had the rest of the afternoon, and two further days to explore Venice. So, we headed to the nearest bar!

It’s easy to walk a lot in Venice; good for getting your step-count up. And walk we did. We were so shattered that evening, that we ate at a nearby restaurant recommended by our hotel, and had an early night.

The following morning, we did the tour of the Doge’s Palace. We pre-booked tickets, so we could avoid the queue to get in (we still had to queue there, mind you), but we hadn’t booked enough in advance to get the tour that includes the secret tunnels and Bridge of Sighs. But somehow, these bits were included. Maybe there were other even-more-secret tunnels and rooms, but once you’ve see one cell, you’ve seen them all? And we did cross the ‘Bridge of Sighs’, so-called because when convicts were led from the court rooms to the prison cells, they crossed the bridge, and looked down the canal at their last glimpse of freedom. And sighed.

Skipper in one of the many impressive rooms of the Doge's Palace.

Afterwards, we crossed the Rialto (Antonio: “Now, what news upon the Rialto?”), and headed into the streets behind the (sadly-closed) fish market, to ferret out some ‘Chicchetti’. This is the Venetian equivalent of tapas, from the Latin “ciccus”, meaning small quantity. There are a few well-known bars, that make all the lists, and we stumbled across one, and had a nice bite to eat. Later that evening, we jumped on a vaporetto (water bus) to return to the area for dinner, but Skipper had us catch the wrong one, and we ended up a good walk away, stumbling across some good cicchetti bars on the way.

Included in the price of our hotel room was a visit to the island of Murano, famous for its glass-making. We elected to take the trip on our second day, and shared the private water taxi with another British couple from the hotel. On arrival, we sat in the glass-blowing area, and watched two men make elements of a chandelier. It was mesmerising, they were experts of course.

Our guide explained that the glass makers had been moved across to Murano from the main island 1291, to reduce the risk of fires from the furnaces, and also to help protect any specialist techniques. We sat and asked questions, eventually moving into the showrooms, where of course, we were free to buy any piece…

Now, I have a beautiful blue, Murano glass butterfly, a present from my beloved parents (when they had visited years before), and I was on the look-out for matching earrings. But despite us agreeing that we wouldn’t buy anything, we fell in love with a piece that looked like a tropical fish aquarium. And of course, we ended up buying it. (It will be shipped to the UK in July when we return home.)

Our Murano glass aquarium.

Suddenly, we were offered coffee, prosecco etc. and a ride back to the hotel. We negotiated the free ride back for our new friends, but asked to be dropped off at the vaporetto stop that would take us to another island, Burano. It’s incredibly pretty, with houses of different colours, and it is the centre of lace-making. We didn’t buy any, ha-ha.

After a light lunch, and a walk, we agreed to return to the main island, and our hotel. We could see the queue for the vaporetto was extremely long, and knew we had a long wait, with potentially no-seat, for the 45-minute return journey. So, Richard had the excellent idea of catching the vaporetto from an earlier stop. Brilliant! We strolled to the previous stop, and congratulated ourselves as we got a seat at the back of the ferry, when it emptied at the main stop. What we hadn’t appreciated, was that the vaporetto set-off again, almost empty in the same direction, away from Vencie!! Whoops.

We consulted a fellow passenger who checked her local travel App. She said we must disembark at the next stop, and then catch three further ferries back to the main island. Now, I had drunk lots of water and there are no loos on the vessel! She was very sweet, and consulted the ferry's conductor, who corrected her, explaining that the next stop was indeed the end of the line, and that we would be whisked back to Venice if we stayed put. He even told me where to go for a quick pee, before we departed. Phew.

Back at our hotel, we sat on the waterside terrace, and watched the world go by on the Grand Canal. There were all sorts of boats, including gondolas, the DHL delivery boat (I never did see the Amazon one), boats carrying a fridge-freezer, private taxis etc. You could watch it all day.

Later on, the receptionist recommended that we visit the Jewish quarter for some chicchetti, easily walkable from our hotel. There we found Jews in traditional garb, interesting bars and delicious food. We ended up in one, chatting with a group of French, all of us singing the 1989 chart hit “Voyage, Voyage” on the playlist.

Some chiccheti bars

It would have been fun to stay, but we were off again in the morning, but that didn’t mean that Richard couldn’t have an ice-cream, as we walked back to our hotel!