(Well dear reader, as you've come this far with me, I have a confession to make before you continue reading. Almost four years have passed since this wonderful trip and I'm only now putting fingers to keyboard to complete the tales of my adventure. "How did that happen?" I hear you ask. I'm not sure, our days just became so full and there weren't enough hours at night to blog and upload photos…that and painfully slow internet connections which didn't help. Al...

We rose early and IT WAS SO COLD. We were rugged up in our thermals but even then the cold made its way through to our bones…I've never been so cold in all my life. After catching a ferry to the bus station we caught a bus to Treviso Airport, just over an hour from Venice, to board our 10:10am flight to Dublin. As we travelled along the canal to the bus station, we began to notice that not everyone was feeling the cold like us…they were dressed in shorts a...

We headed off this morning in search of a traghetto which will take you across the Canal Grande for €2 ($4) rather than the €6.50 ($13) the ferries charge, but after lots of walking and asking many times about them and being directed to the ferries we decided it was something the locals kept for themselves and resorted to the ferry to cross to Piazza San Marco (Saint Marks' Square)...us and every other tourist in Venice. There were tour groups everywhere, wit...

After pretty much a full day either on or changing trains, or in train station waiting rooms, we arrived in Venice late in the afternoon, with one sick little girl. Poor Hayley spent most of the train journeys being sick and blamed the gorgonzola cheese ("I throw cheese out when it has mould growing on it." she said) which she accidentally ate on the pear, walnut and gorgonzola pizza we (mainly me) had last night. She's not a big fan of too much cheese at the bes...

After a filling breakfast at the monastery of (no, not gruel) bread, jams, toast, and a biscuit which tasted a bit like a Girl Guide biscuit, yoghurt and coffee, we headed back to the town centre to check out a bag shop we saw yesterday. Unfortunately it didn't open until 10:00am, the whole town seemed to operate at a laid back easy pace, old men sat around in the town square talking and whiling away the hours. I really wanted to do a bike ride in Tuscany but Co...