TUESDAY 26th JUNE 2012

ITALY AGAIN

Enjoyed a really good sleep in our very quiet and very dark cabins! Best sleep for ages, probably because we knew there was no wake up call, and not having to be at breakfast until 8.30am!
The rest of the morning was spent taking it easy in the comfy arm chairs in the ferry's main lounge, most of us reading or simply discussing the cruise etc.
I spent the best part of three hours catching up with the travel blog - I had got over a week behind - and it was good to have people about to quiz on all the bits I had forgotten!!!
Unfortunately there was no wifi on board and the cost of Internet access was extreme, so I had no chance to post anything - hopefully we may be able to get wifi access tonight to do that.
The ferry trip itself was very enjoyable - the ferry was big, quite new and there were ample meal areas and bars - and to sit and look out over the flat calm ocean was most relaxing.
The time passed very quickly and before we knew it we were packing our bags, collecting our cases and disembarking in Ancona, which is a large ferry port surrounded by nice beaches and rich agricultural country.
Mauritzio was waiting for us with our excellent coach - everyone rapt to see our very popular and very capable driver - and then it was "back on the bus" for the drive to Venice!
Despite our breakdown making the ferry about forty five minutes late leaving Patras, the skipper had made good time and we were actually early getting to Ancona, and so with a bit of extra time up our sleeve Victor decided to take the coastal route on a minor road rather than the autostrada.
For a lot of the group this made for a boring drive, but I absolutely loved it! The quality and variety of the farming country we passed through was the best we have seen on tour so far! Right on the outskirts of Ancona we saw hundreds of acres of sunflowers, even more cereal crops, vast areas of maize and countless paddocks of vegetables! Most of the grain crops were being harvested - dense, high producing fields of wheat and barley - with many tractors and large trailers hauling the grain to storage. The straw left behind was being baled up immediately into big square bales.
Just about all of the farms were irrigated by centre pivots or single big sprinklers, the water coming from open drains and being pumped by tractor mounted pumps! There was also a fair bit of flood irrigation.
The traffic on the two lane road was heavy, lots of trucks and farmers carting grains, and it was a slow old trip. We stopped for coffee at a very old village with an ancient church (which I refused to go look at!!!) and enjoyed a really nice brew for a change! The coffee in Italy, like most in Europe is drunk black and strong and we have had a fair bit of trouble getting a decent white coffee! Cappuccino is available but is only half a cup with the rest froth, cafe latte is reasonable if you like strong coffee and a flat white is unheard of!!!! These ones were big, hot and were made with REAL milk for a change - not bloody UHT!
Back on the road and we started to encounter some of the low lying wet areas in the lead up to Venice, there were many lakes and rivers including The Po River which is the largest in Italy.
Eventually we came to the huge waterway called the Venice Lagoon which opens up from the ocean and which Venice is built upon! It is a huge expanse of water being fed by numerous rivers which all start in the mountains that run up the spine of Italy, and which deposit silt into the lagoon. Areas are sandbagged up and dredged silt pumped in and allowed to compact for many years before building commences!
The road continued on a large causeway for quite a few mkilometres, with little boats of all shapes and types shuttling along designated waterways - lots of water taxis and barges carrying goods!
Our hotel was is Mestre, which is a city in itself, built on real land (not reclaimed) and about twenty kilometres from Venice. Another of the Apogia chain it turned out to be a real two star, ordinary Italian hotel! The room was ok but with a yukky musty rotten smell that we found coming from the bathroom drain sump!!!! Poooh! Mumsie was not impressed but we covered the grate with a towel, cranked up the ancient air con unit and managed to disperse most of the pong! I know our tour is called Cost Saver and we are in Italy but really Trafalgar???? Hello???? We are living in 2012 now! This and the other Apogia place in Paris are real dumps and not at all suitable!
The hotel wifi was not working so there was no chance of catching up with news from home so we joined our fellow travelers for the very ordinary dinner provided before hitting the sack!