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Full of excitement, I wake up in Venice! We make our way to the breakfast buffet to check out the standard of food on board. It will do nicely! Over eggs and bacon, comes the moment that will make or break the holiday. Will I be able to get the EE internet package so I can load up the geocaching app? It's a winner, 150MB of Day for £3, a bargain.😀
So fully victualled and watered, we get off the boat and prepare to wander off into Venice. The port is about a mile and a half away from the Doge's Palace but I have a route in my head and the Venice wish list on my Iphone.😉
Just outside the dock gates is Welcome To Venice, a 3/1.5 trad, a tricky trad on the main pedestrian route into the city. I thought that I was going to start the trip with a DNF but with a bit of lateral thinking, this was the cache that earned the Italy souvenir.
The next cache was Chiesa di San Rocco|Tintoretto Painting. The Scoula San Rocco is my favourite place in Venice. I think that this was my fourth visit but this time I didn't pay my 9 euros to get in. On previous visits, I have just lain on the floor for hours marvelling at the Tintoretto masterpieces on the ceiling. However, I don't have time for that today as I want to see other parts of this marvellous city, especially those that have geocaches. This cache was a quick find of a trad behind a notice board, no-one was looking in the direction of the odd Englishman hiding behind the sign.
Just for the record, my wife suffers with an injury to her knee making it difficult to walk for too long. This means that we stop regularly in a cafe or similar, to rest with a coffee, a tea or maybe even a beer or two🍺 Rule 1, the cafe must have free wi-fi, and Rule 2, while Kathy is catching up with the world and contacting the girls, I have a wander. It works quite well.😎
During one such interlude, I picked up two trads, par le sconte 03 and San Zan Degola. The latter involved working my way through a maze of alleys, arriving in a tiny square near the Grand Canal. The hint was Camino/Chimney and finally I found the inspection plate at ground level that gave access to the chimney! The former was even worse! The same mo, a maze of tiny streets and the cache was tucked away in a dark alley where my shoulders were in contact with the walls at all times. The hint was "bring a torch" and guess what, I had one! After a long time, I located the loose brick with the cache behind. When I got back to Kathy, she was on her second piccolo birra so I had to catch up didn't I?
I only had two more caches on my list. One was in near the Doge's Palace, an Earthcache called Venice Is A Big Fish but I'd worked out most of the answers before I'd arrived, just needing a couple of observations and a selfie. Parking Kathy in another bar with free wi-fi, I took off for The Snail, a virtual.
I had to pass the Hard Rock Cafe. I was tempted to go into the foyer to have another look at the bass guitar previously owned by Felix Pappalardi of that legendary late 60s, early 70s U.S. blues rock band Mountain. He also produced most of the albums by Cream, that powerhouse trio comprising Clapton, Bruce and Baker. Unfortunately he's no longer with us, having been shot dead on a New York street by his wife.
Anyway back to the Snail, a spiral of a building, hidden away in the back streets that I would never have visited but for this wonderful hobby of ours. I did the necessary and then it was back to rescue my wife and make our way out to the terminal by water bus. A brilliant day but probably my last visit to this wonderful city.