Venice

Our first taste of Eurocamp, Italian Style! – part ii

Saturday 18th June 2016Thursday 23rd June 2016Baggie

Hopefully, you have read part i before jumping straight in to part ii, if you haven’t and you would like to remind yourself about how we got to where the following begins then please click here.

As you are reading on I am assuming that you have read part i and so I will begin. With the organised trip to Venice a no-show and our hearts set on going to Venice on Wednesday we asked at the information desk for options. We were told that there was a bus that stopped outside the campsite that took you to Ponte Sabbioni from where you could get a ferry. That option filled us with dread. A long bus journey with three young children before an equally long ferry journey before we stepped foot on Venice, wasn’t our idea of fun. We had also read some stories of people who hadn’t been that attentive to the various timetables and found themselves stranded in Venice or Ponte Sabbioni because there are only so many ways back, indeed the return bus from Ponte Sabbioni stopped in the early evening and we didn’t want to be held hostage to public transport timetables. Therefore, we decided to cut as much of the public transport aspect out of the journey that we could. Thus,we would only need to concentrate on one timetable and so we fired up Waze and headed south in the Ford Focus to Ponte Sabbioni.

We blindly trusted Waze through back roads and across country all the way to Ponte Sabbioni. There, we parked at the first car park we saw, which was a very reasonable €7 for the entire day; cheaper than 5 return bus tickets! We joined the queue for ferry tickets and before long we were aboard and heading across the lagoon to Venice. Lucinda and I took a city break in Venice back in 2005, long before the Baguettes made an appearance. Nevertheless, Venice probably hasn’t changed that much for a couple of hundred years, and certainly hasn’t changed since Lucinda and I visited.

We got off the Ferry and decided that the first task was to try to find somewhere to have lunch, to put some fuel in our bellies in readiness for exploring the alleyways and campi (little squares, the name piazza is reserved for St Mark’s Square – campi means ‘fields’) of the island. Moving away from Piazza San Marco and its ludicrous prices we found a small pizzeria away from the hustle and bustle. Suitably sated we began the exploration of the city. The Baguettes are too young to fully appreciate the history of Venice and so we decided that we would not join the tourist queues for the tours of the Doge’s Palace, St Mark’s Basilica or its Campanile and simply view them from the piazza.

Venice is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world. The little island welcomes over 20 million visitors per year and thus outnumber the 60,000 or so residents on a daily basis. With this in mind we were very conscious that it could be very easy to lose a Baguette in the overcrowded alleys, and so we took a water-based felt tip pen and wrote my mobile number on their arms. Slightly paranoid, maybe but better safe than sorry.

Venice was an adventure for them all. They saw Piazza San Marco and the aforementioned, Doge’s Palace, St Mark’s Basilica and its Campanile and the Bridge of Sighs. We then walked through the alleyways via the Pandora shop (Lucinda wanted a Venice related charm for her charm bracelet) and the Hard Rock Café (Lucinda wanted a Hard Rock Café badge for her collection – the Hard Rock Café was not there when last we visited). We showed them shops full of Venetian masks and Murano glass as we weaved towards Ponte di Rialto (The Rialto Bridge) one of four bridges (and the most famous) that span the Grand Canal. Unfortunately, the bridge is currently obscured by scaffolding and so they did not see it in all its splendour.

The Baguettes really enjoyed exploring Venice. Éowyn and Amélie spent some of their remaining Euros to buy a Venetian fan and Éowyn also bought herself a pen with pictures of the major landmarks of Venice. One thing that we didn’t take into account, which was evident as soon as we disembarked and we felt foolish for not considering it before we landed was the fact that Venice is criss-crossed with canals, it is kind of what it is famous for (although Birmingham has more miles of canals that Venice), and to cross those canals there a a myriad of bridges. Now, many of these bridges are decades if not centuries old and as such were not designed for accessibility. Therefore, taking the pushchair for Ezra was perhaps a bit of a luxury and we should have made his 3 year old legs walk the 15 or so kilometres that we walked that day. Still, was good exercise for yours truly, lifting the pushchair up a flight of stairs, across a bridge and down a flight of stairs every 100 metres or so. I have no idea what wheelchair users do.

We planned to visit Murano and Burano on the return journey, but time was pressing on and the baguettes were getting tired. Thus we made do with a flying visit to Murano. Murano is an island (or more strictly a series of islands linked together by bridges) about a mile north of Venice. It is world-famous for glass and the glass art and jewellery and so we browsed the various glass shops but all we bought was an ice cream and a Murano glass Christmas tree decoration before boarding the ferry back to Ponte Sabbioni and home.

After our excursions in Venice we decided to have a relaxing day by the pool on Thursday. It would have been a nice relaxing day except it was somewhat marred by an incident that happened at dinner. Throughout Wednesday and Thursday both Éowyn and Amélie loved playing with the fans that they had bought with their money in Venice. Taking our evening meal and our favourite restaurant the fans came too! Before our meal arrived Éowyn decided to go, with Lucinda and Ezra, to the toilet and against my advice she took her fan. As they left the toilet there was a mum with her young daughter heading towards the toilet. As Éowyn returned to the table she realised that she had not picked her fan up after washing her hands, so Lucinda and Éowyn headed back to the toilet. The mum and the girl left the toilet and Éowyn and Lucinda went in. The fan was not there. Éowyn was distraught. So Lucinda headed over to the table with Éowyn, apologised for disturbing their meal, and asked if they had seen the fan or indeed picked it up while they were there – the evidence did kind of point to that. Before Lucinda had even finished the sentence the father replied ‘Nein‘ and both turned from engaging eye contact with Lucinda.

Lucinda returned to our table and as we sat consoling Éowyn and contemplating what we should do, and indeed feeling impotent but not wishing to start an Anglo-German incident we noticed that they had quickly paid their bill were leaving the restaurant. We are certain they picked it up, possibly in all innocence but they did have the perfect opportunity to do the right thing and return it to an obviously upset 7-year-old.

Éowyn learned a hard lesson that day and we spoke to her about her feelings saying that she could either hope that the little girls loves the fan and it is her favourite toy and she treasures it for ever; or she could hope that the fan breaks and it upsets the little girl and her parents have to buy her a new one; or indeed anything in between but however she feels is fine. She was still upset despite contemplating on this emotions so Lucinda and I became 7 year olds ourselves and helped Éowyn make up a rhyme about a mum, with a stinky bum that gave a fan to her daughter, when she really shouldn’t oughta! This cheered her up.

The next morning, Éowyn said that she had thought about her fan and hoped that the girl really looks after it and loves it but she was still upset that she had lost it. She is more magnanimous than I. After breakfast we decided to explore a little more of the area and drove to the nearest town to the resort: Porto Santa Margherita. Porto Santa Margherita appears to be geared around tourism and there are many hotels along the sea front. One of the striking things that you will notice about our photos is that there are not hoards of tourists in the background. It seemed very much that we were the only ones on holiday and in Porto Santa Margherita that was even more pronounced. It appeared that the holiday season hadn’t even started, it felt like an English seaside town in November (except for the 25ºC weather and clear blue skies). There was only so much that we could do to entertain ourselves in such a quiet town so we headed back to Pra’Delle Torri.

After lunch we headed back to the pool and only moved away for ice creams. Anyone with young children will know that they sometimes do not appreciate how quickly an ice cream or lolly can melt while they are eating it and before you know it they are covered in ice cream or there is a pool of ice cream on floor between their feet. Amélie had decided that she didn’t want a ice-cream but wanted a lolly instead. However, she wa taking her time and savouring it, oblivious to the drips collecting at her feet. Then she made the mistake and looked down at the floor. Then the screaming started for enjoying her lolly drips were some ants attracted to the sugar. I tried to calm her down but before I could stop her, she had climbed on the table screaming and sobbing because of the ants. The joys of parenthood!

Conscious that our time was rapidly coming to an end we decided that the final Saturday in Veneto should be spent in Caorle. Saturday in Caorle is market day so it sounded like a perfect combination. We eased ourselves into the day and headed to Caorle. We noticed that there was a park and ride car park on the outskirts of the town with free parking and a free bus ride into the town. We took advantage, although it appears that we were the only one. The car park was empty and there was no bus, nevertheless we parked and decided to walk into town. It wasn’t too far and the highlight of the walk was to wait for a swing bridge over one of the canals to swing back after letting one of the fishing boats back into dock.

We arrived at the market for about 11am (we were on holiday!) but like San Donà di Piave before we were too late. The market was packing up but there were still a few stalls open and time to grab a couple of bargains, including riding on the tailcoats of a nice German lady who was haggling in English for the same item as we wanted. We let her do the hard work and then said make that two! There was also time for Daddy to buy Éowyn (and Amélie who had broke hers, and Ezra who didn’t want to feel left out) a new fan – for a fraction of the price that Éowyn and Amélie paid in Venice!

Caorle did not let us down and we discovered probably the best gelateria in the world. You make your own gelato. Yes, as you walk in you can choose you choice of cone (or tub), then add your favourite flavoured gelato (as many as you want) and then add as many toppings as you can balance on top. The gelato is charged by weight and was very reasonable – although the peanut m&ms were probably a mistake.

After the ice cream we took a stroll along the prom (prom, prom) where the sea is held back by big rocks as many shore around the world. However the rocks that face the prom have been individually carved by local artists with a nautical theme – see the pictures on Flickr. We walked the full length of the prom passed the Church of the Blessed Virgin of the Angel to the beach. As we passed the church a newly married couple walked into the world as man and wife to the whoops and cheers of random strangers (including ourselves) who were playing by the shore.

Sunday, was our last full day in Italy and we woke to heavy rain. This lasted all morning and so we began the arduous task of packing ready for home. We then had lunch using the remainder of our food and by the time that was down the rain had stopped and so we headed to the pool. The afternoon was sunny and warm and so we stayed by the pool for a good four hours before heading back to change for our last dinner in Italy.

Before heading to our favourite on site restaurant we had one thing left to do that we had promised the girls that we would do before the end of the holiday: we headed to the bike hire shop and hired a two-man (person) pedal car. Lucinda and I were the power while Amélie and Ezra sat in the front seat and Éowyn balanced between Lucinda and I. We only hired them for 30 minutes which was ample for exploring the park, including a whole area that we hadn’t seen before which included two restaurants and mini golf course! Ezra didn’t like it at first and kept asking us to stop. So we encouraged him to say ‘Ciao’ to everyone. This was a great distraction and before long he was laughing and really enjoying the reaction he was getting from everyone. As we passed the Nutella crepe girls he shouted ‘Ciao, sweetie’, I’m not sure he whether he was being smooth or (because they also sold sweeties) that he was in fact saying goodbye to the sweeties. I’d like to think it was the former.

Monday morning we packed up and left the site early for one last arrividerci to our favourite town, Caorle, and an ice cream at favourite gelateria before returning to Treviso airport and home.

We thoroughly enjoyed our time in Italy and at Pra’Delle Torri in particular. Our first foreign caravan holiday was a great success and are already looking to see where we should go for the next Bagnall foreign trip. Obviously, you will have to tune in to see where that will be.

I will now leave you with a few more photos from our holiday and please look through the 600+ pictures on Flickr.

Peace and Love

Baggie

Look it’s Venice

The Baguettes in Venice

On the ferry to Venice

Which way?

I like that one

Girls on tour

We are in Venice

Outside the Doge’s palace

St Mark’s Square

Wave to the Gondoliers

Mum and Dad

Daddy and Éowyn

Burano

Another canal?

So happy!

Venetian fans

Éowyn and her fan

Tutti Bambini with fans

I’m ready for the beach

On the beach

Thumbs up

Peace

Excited

Chill

The Bagnalls in Caorle

The best ice-creams

I like this car

I like this chair

Surreal face

A mermaid

Splash!

A pretty boat

Contemplative

Sharing a laugh

Cheeky

I love Italy!

Our first taste of Eurocamp, Italian style! – part i

Saturday 18th June 2016Thursday 23rd June 2016Baggie

The half term holiday around the Spring Bank Holiday is by definition in and around the last Monday in May and from a work point of view traditionally the quietest of the School holidays. The Premier League season has finished, the summer tournaments have not yet started and so is the perfect opportunity to carry on the tradition, started last year, of going abroad with the children. That is what we thought when we booked this holiday last December, however that was before our Channels department (which I am the Head of) expanded to incorporate a new channel and a pop up service both to start in the middle of this period on the 1st June! Therefore the weeks leading up to the holiday I was working hard trying to ensure that everything that could be in place was in place and let everyone know that I was out of the office, without access to emails (a deliberate decision) but would be contactable by the 1990’s mobile communication methods – phonecall or text message.

As mentioned we booked this holiday at the end of last year and initially we were going to go down the same route as last year and opt for the easy solution of ‘all-inclusive’. However, being a family of five this becomes expensive. Not many ‘all-inclusive’ resorts caters for 3 children and thus you are forced down the route of renting two rooms, nominally with one of the children in the second room on their own – in practise that would mean all five of your fitting into a too small space with the luggage in a room of its own. In addition to not being practical this boosted the price significantly and even with generous in shop discounts. The fact that we were trying to be good and book during school holiday time and not the week before or the week after also added to make the complete package far beyond our budget. Therefore we looked for an alternative.

Eurocamp, founded in 1973 (a good year), have accommodation in over 180 different parks across Europe, and seemed like a good alternative. Some of the sites looked as good, if not better, than many of the ‘all-inclusive’ resorts that we had looked at, all for a fraction of the price. Obviously, one has to pay for flights and food separately but after doing our sums it seemed that we would make significant savings. Indeed it was cheaper to take a holiday in Italy (with flights) than just the accommodation on a caravan site in the UK. We decided that we would like to take the children to Italy for it is probably Lucinda’s and my favourite European country. Éowyn had visited once before in 2010 for the wedding of friends of mine Simon and Stefania, and I suppose, technically Amélie had too, since she was a foetus at the time. Lucinda did the homework and found a fantastically looking site in the form of Pra’Delle Torri in the Veneto region of Italy. North of Venice itself, Pra”Delle Torri lies just outside the seaside town of Caorle on the Adriatic coast.

Obviously, the websites can only show you so much. The reviews all seemed favourable with the only downside being a common complaint regarding Eurocamp accommodation in that the caravans themselves feel a little tired, but an overall review of 8.6 out of 10 seemed to swing it. Pra’Delle Tori is one of the larger campsites on the Eurocamp books and had an impressive array of facilities including its own beach and a fantastic pool complex, more of which later. So with the accommodation in mind we then had to get there. My idea of driving across Europe wasn’t accepted so we looked for cheap flights. Of the usual suspects Ryanair flew to Treviso airport and so, with a little trepidation,we decided to book flights on the budget airline. Ryanair offer free hold luggage for children and so, for once, having three children came in handy as we could fit all five of our holiday needs into three lots of 20kg hold suitcases. That saved a little money but we paid extra to book priority tickets – well worth the money in hindsight! Nevertheless the accommodation plus the flights still worked out to be favourable compared to hiring an equivalent caravan for the same period in the U.K., such is the premium that parents with children in full-time education have to pay – but I have had that rant before!

The third part required to complete the holiday travel was a hire car in Italy. With three children and three suitcases in needed to a practical car rather than anything fancy. Hence when we found a Ford Focus Estate for £12/day there was no choice to make. Large enough for all three children to sit across the back (thankfully Éowyn is 136cm tall and thus does not need a booster seat) and a boot big enough for all our luggage it fitted perfectly.

Thus, riding on the back of the aforementioned incredibly busy period at work my mind wasn’t really focused on the holiday in the lead up and I only packed after finishing work late on the Thursday (Lucinda had packed for herself and the kids – I only had to sort myself out!). We had decided to leave on the Friday (taking the kids out of school) and return on the Monday (again taking them out of school) for two major reasons. The first was that last year a week seemed too short a holiday. A fortnight would have probably felt too long, but a week was too short so with the extra day added to either end of the school break we could have a ten-day holiday and see how we felt about that time frame. The second reason was that the flights were considerably cheaper on the Friday and Monday respectively compared to the Saturday and Sunday, one seventh of the price in fact. When you multiply that up by 10 flights (return flights for the five of us) that was a considerable amount of money saved, even though it meant higher bills for the accommodation and car hire.

Therefore Friday morning the car was packed and we headed around the M25 towards Stansted at the tail end of the rush hour (another advantage of sorting everything out yourself is the fact that you can choose your departure time rather that the usual ohmygod it is early o’clock that is the usual alarm call for chartered planes departing for all-inclusive resorts). We had also booked a valet parking service (taking advantage of a fantastic offer on Groupon) so we simply turned up, unloaded, handed our keys to a man and walked the short distance to the terminal building. Everything seemed to be going smoothly. The boarding procedure was smooth, no Ryanair horror stories that you sometimes hear of, although we were glad we paid for priority boarding and before you knew it we had landed at Treviso airport.

Our first car journey was the only slight fly in the ointment. Trying not to use data roaming I had brought my 8 year old sat nav with 8 year old European maps as a means of navigation. Also, trying to be skinflints we decided to try to make it to Pra’Delle Torri without going on toll roads. The sat nav struggled and more than once we found ourselves more than a little lost, a gravel track with precarious drops to either side was probably the hairiest moment before I decided to burn the data and fire up Waze (by far my favourite app!). It wasn’t long before signs to Pra’Delle Torri appeared and we arrived about an hour later than we thought we would.

First impressions were favourable, even if the caravan that we were to call home for the next ten days was a little tired. However, as we reflected it was dry, it had beds and a very good shower; there were cooking facilities and even a gas barbecue and the plan was that hopefully we wouldn’t be spending much time indoors – we were on holiday after all! By the time we had made the beds and unpacked it was late so there was not much time for exploration, we found the nearest restaurant and had our first pizza of the holiday. After dinner, we checked out the entertainment arena and it doing so discovered one of our favourite parts of the holiday, the crepe and waffle stall. Nutella Crepes all round!

We woke on Saturday morning to a glorious day, not a cloud in the sky. However what did we decide to do? Head to the nearest supermarket to stock up the cupboards. Before we went on holiday we had told the Baguettes that they could have €20 each to spend on whatever they wanted. That money must have been burning a hole in the their pockets because they all bought a beanie baby (don’t ask) on that first day; Éowyn bought a rabbit, Amélie an Owl and Ezra a dragon. We arrived back at the site, put the shopping away and got ready to go to the pool.

This is where the campsite excelled. There are 4 main pools: An Olympic sized (50 metres by 21 metres) swimming pool for those that wanted to swim; a half sized Olympic sized swimming pool for those that wanted to swim but can’t swim as well as the ones that were using the Olympic sized swimming pool; a toddler pool replete with a pirate ship in the middle and a lagoon styled pool that coved at least the area of the other three combined. This became our favourite pool for it was no deep than a metre at the deepest, meaning the Baguettes were never out of their depth, it had six slides, a jacuzzi and a waterfall. The only downside was that it was not heated and as it was not the height of summer it was a tad on the cold side first thing in a morning.

That first afternoon, though we spent by the pirate pool. The water was only around 60 centimetres (2 foot in old money) deep although great fun with the slides and the water cannons. Ezra, however, was not impressed and as the girls frolicked like the mermaids that adorned the prow of the pirate ship, Ezra steadfastly refused to even dip his toes into the water. Indeed screamed his head off as I carried him around the perimeter of the pool, fearing that I would put him down. So we sat and played while the girls enjoyed themselves in the water.

The evening began what would become a regular pattern, an earlyish dinner, especially in relation to Italian and Continental habits in general, then head off to the outdoor theatre for the evening entertainment, until Ezra felt tired and either Lucinda or I would take him back to allow the girls enjoy the entertainment a little longer before dragging them back to bed.

That pattern did not establish itself immediately however. The next day we spent exclusively by the pool – it was a Sunday after all, a day of rest! But we decided that we would leave the site for our evening meal and headed to the nearby town of Caorle. Caorle is a small city that attracts tourist from all over the world. It was founded by the Romans in the first century B.C. and used to be classed as one of the most important cities of the Republic of Venice. Its old town centre still retains this Venetian feel with its brightly coloured houses separated by alleys and surrounding squares. Its skyline is dominated by the Bell Tower of the Cathedral of St. Stephen. It is 48 metres high, cylindrical, topped with a cone-shaped cusp which makes it unique, not only, in Italy but throughout Christendom. On the promontory by the sea lies another locally famous religious building, the Church of the Blessed Virgin of the Angel. Overlooking the sea it has had its nave destroyed many times in the past. Unfortunately, we were not there for the Feast of the Incoronation where there is the ‘fire of the bell tower‘ when, among the celebrations there are fireworks. Will have to look that one up. After dinner, we explored the town and found a gelateria and had our first Italian ice cream of the holiday before heading back to Pra’Delle Torri and bed.

Buoyed on by the beauty of Caorle we decided that we would look to explore the area on Monday. Looking in the guide-book supplied by the site we saw that there was a market on in the nearby city of San Donà di Piave. So despite the ominous dark clouds on the horizon we drove across Veneto, stopped briefly by a local police checkpoint just outside of Brian (yes, the town of Brian – insert your own Monty Python joke here) before arriving at the city just before noon. I am not sure what we were expecting, probably a pretty little medieval market town but that is not what San Donà di Piave is. It is much more industrial than many of the other towns in the area and didn’t have that ye olde world charm we were expecting. This is probably partly due to the fact that it was completely rebuilt in the 1920’s after most of it was destroyed during World War I and partly due to it being a transport hub of the surrounding district. It also didn’t help that the market was like any market in the U.K. (we were expecting lots of local produce and artisan goods, not selfie sticks and Angry Birds T-shirts) and by the time we had arrived (about noon) the market was winding down and many of the stalls were packing up. Nevertheless it saved us some money and instead we decided to look for somewhere to eat before heading back to Pra’Delle Torri.

So after our disappointment of San Donà di Piave (and apologies to anyone that loves the city, I am sure it is very nice, it just wasn’t what we were expecting!) we spent Tuesday on the campsite. Before heading to the pool (where we stayed all day) we popped into the pharmacy. Firstly we were running out of factor 50 sun block (we are all pale skinned and so burn easily even if it isn’t that hot) and I had been bitten by mosquitos sometime over the weekend and they were still quite inflamed and quite itchy. The pharmacist was extremely helpful and spoke perfect English. She explained that the whole of the Veneto region is basically a swamp and is home to 120 different species of mosquito and so it is not surprising that a) I’d been bitten and b) that I was mildly allergic to its bite. As I bought my antihistamine cream, mosquito repellent and waterproof factor 50 she explained that my reaction was quite mild compared to a lady that had been in earlier. Where as my bites were about 2.5cm across, hers were over 25cm across. That must not have been pleasant!

Next door to the pharmacy was the information office where we had booked a trip to Venice for the next day. When we had booked it we were warned that unless there were sufficient numbers the trip would not go ahead and to inquire on Tuesday for further information and/or a refund. Unfortunately it was the latter. The campsite was quiet, I can only assume that although it was half term in the UK, other European countries were not on holiday and so there was not the interest and our money was returned. We would have to make our own way there if we wanted to go.

You will have to wait for part ii for the answer to that question. In the meantime please enjoy a selection of photos from the holiday below. If these are not enough for you head to the Flickr page where there are over 500!

Peace and Love

Baggie