A week in Italy started in Cork last Friday with a ten minute taxi ride to airport, three hour flight to Rome, thirty minutes to city, steps to the hostel, twenty minutes with some room key issues, and then on the streets of Rome by 10:30 p.m. for pizza and gelato with the Dreadful Creatures. While "popping" over to the Continent for these short excursions is great, always a touch longer in reality than theory. We almost sent the DCs to the streets by themselves when we realized the cooler (and much younger) guests at the Fawlty Towers Hostel were having a rooftop cocktail party, but we relented and confessed we were in fact parents of two young children.Caught the morning train to Venice and a slight travel odyssey began. A 4 1/2 hour train journey became 6 1/2 hours with track electrical problems, arrival in Venice was a mass of tourists and poorly labeled water taxis (Don't these people speak English?). After several false starts, we arrive at Punta Sabboni, a short vaporetto ride away from Venice. Boarded the local bus and confidently using our Rick Steves bad Italian asked the driver to drop us off at our holiday camp, Ca' Savio. About twenty minutes into the journey we begin to get an uneasy feeling and sure enough we passed the camp about five minutes after the bus journey started. Off the bus, darkness is falling, the suitcase rollers are broken, the DCs have lost the plot, and numerous promises to the ODC about what we will buy her if she just keeps walking (Turns out a 42 Euro stuffed Cheetah at Termini Station in Rome--ouch!). 60 minutes later we arrive and are kindly given a golf cart ride to our bungalow on a sprawling campground/resort complex. Lodging is great but Italians do not provide sheets (nor toilet paper). No worries, Italians do have incredible campground cafes and by midnight we are eating pizza and gelato with the DCs in a repeat of our previous night in Rome--and a few bottles of 2 Euro wine as well. The next four days involve croissants, espressos, wine, pools, water slides, children's late night discos, pizza, pizza etc.. (oh, did I mention pizza) --the Italians do know how to camp--my memories of childhood camping at Lake Wenatchee see like distant bad memories. The "adults" plans to take turns visiting Venice soon evaporate into a lazy Italian camping week. On to Milan for two days for a restaurant show (basically ham and cheese) but great city and subway system. Then the night train from Milan to Rome--morning delivery of 4 croissants, 4 espressos, and 4 Italian newspapers by a grumpy Woody Allen look-a-like conductor--they start the caffeine habit early here. A day of sights in Rome and then home last night--ice cream and pizza at midnight again--this time in Cork.
Well, I should say three of us are home. We left CW at the Rome Airport last night--she flew on to Barcelona to meet her sisters and mom for an 80th birthday cruise on the Med. She's gone for ten days and I am babysitting her kids--so wrong, so very wrong...
