It was great to get back on the bike and "on the road again", (Sung in your best Willy Nelson voice). So after spending a week in Lucca sorting things out and enjoying an Italian spring we said goodbye to our friends and headed for the hills. The mountains to the north of Lucca were like nothing we had seen in Italy before and we thoroughly enjoyed them, the forests were lush and the views spectacular. We were heading to Modena first and then onto Maranello to the Ferrari museum, and then onto Venezia, (Venice). At the Ferrari museum we could have taken a Ferrari for a drive, but our budget and time didn't really allow it. Inside we saw some beautiful examples of Ferrari engineering. I loved the F1 engines and the Enzo, while Julie had her eye on the 2012 convertible. Just one power ball!
We didn't know what to expect from Venezia, but we approached it with an open mind, as that is all you can really do. We had stayed in a caravan park not from from the city and caught a bus into town to find a very busy place with people and busses everywhere. We were going to start in Murano, an island known for its glass. Julie wanted to buy some Venetian glass while we were here. After having some trouble finding the correct water bus to Murano we arrived on the island and thoroughly enjoyed the place, we loved the canal system, the old buildings and the shops and cafe's. We saw some glass blowing and visited the glass museum before buying Julie a necklace/earring set from a place called Mezzega's glass factory. Those of you from Armadale will know that name! We then caught the water bus back to Venezia and had a good look around. Julie had romantic visions of floating around the water ways in a Gondola, but when she saw how unstable they looked she changed her mind. Just as well, they wanted €80 for an hour! We continued looking around Venezia all afternoon until we had a pizza for dinner. We had a look at a Leonardo da Vinci museum that was most interesting, what an amazing man!
We were a little disappointed that monuments like the Rialto Bridge had graffiti on them and in some places on the canals the rubbish had washed up, but overall we liked Venezia over the other big cities in Italy. The next day was spent in the park and walking the area, because it was raining. We departed the following day for Slovenia and the run across though Italy couldn't have been more different to our previous travels through Italy, the cities/villages were nicer and even the drivers were better and even though we were traveling through farming land, the back drop was spectacular with the alps still having snow on them, it was quite a view.