August 27

August 27th (sunny and very warm)
After beating Georg at crib again last evening, (I am on a winning streak), killing all the mosquitoes and finally cooling off, we had a great sleep. There is a fair amount of late-night partying here, but everyone kept the noise down considering. This campground has a round-trip shuttle service to old Venice in a big, beautiful air-conditioned tour bus. No sooner did we sit down and Georg mentioned that this was “stress-free driving”.
We arrived in town at 10 am and began our walking tour of Venice. Instead of following a prescribed walking tour, we just let the streets do the talking to us knowing full well that on an island, you are bound to run out of land sooner or later. I must say, Venice is very unique and there is really no other city that we have seen like it. We did not notice any stench coming from the water as we did 35 years ago. We do believe there are more pigeons here though.
We had a great lunch – Georg managed to blow the budget by having a $20 liter glass of beer along with a very delicious pizza. We also had the best ice cream (gelati) we have ever had. In fact, all the ice cream in Europe is exceptional. Sitting at the sidewalk café surrounded by the buildings in Venice, Georg noticed what we deem to be derelict looking, they look at it as being classic. Somewhere there, is a fine line.
We took a fifteen-minute bus ferry back through the Grand Canal and just managed to hook up with our return bus to the campsite. As it is around 37 degrees and quite humid, so when we returned to our van, we had a cold shower, a couple of beer and chilled. Today I taught a South Korean young man how to swim. With his persistency, he went from almost drowning to swimming the full length in two days.
While we were sitting enjoying the night air, one of our `neighbours’ asked if he could borrow a pot to cook spaghetti. Turns out they are travelling around the world with bare minimum supplies, i.e. their rangetop consisted of a 4” electrical probe. I took pity on them and cooked their noodles for them. I also let them have a couple of bowls and spoons to eat with. Nice young people, but I insisted that get more organized in the cooking department.