Venice

Our drive to Venice had us stopping through a few towns along the way, originally we had 3 towns to break up the drive, but we forgot one so we ended up doing a huge drive one day, oops. If it wasn’t so cold we would have visited the surprising town of Montagnana because it was a walled town. The largest factor for us skipping our visit though was that we have been to well over a dozen walled towns. The town was surprising because we had seen nothing like it so far in Italy. Punta Sabioni was our campsite for two days while we visited Venice. In summer this place would have been packed so we were thankful for visiting out of season. The ferry ride was 13 euros each for a 12 hour pass. It dropped us off near the main square, Piazza San Marco. Carnival was on and our first sight of this was the theme park area set up along the Grand Canal heading away from the Piazza San Marco. As soon as you got off the ferry there were about a dozen stands selling the famous “Carnival masks”. We perused these for awhile before walking along the Grand Canal to the tourist office. Our first taste of Venice was nice and it continued to be so, but the most regrettable thing is that everything costs. During our walk there were artists trying to sell pictures or offering portraits, there were also many offering face painting traditional with Carnival. The tourist office didn’t have much of anything useful except that it sold tickets to a play that told the history of Venice. That would have been cool to go to see, but 50 euros each is a little steep. We wandered the many streets with numerous shops selling just about everything but almost all sold masks. There were so many tourists here that you didn’t really need a map because you could just follow the crowd to find some new and interesting area. We went to a small pizza shop for calzones, at 4.50 they were the cheapest. They were good, but Gino’s makes them bigger and better. We spent a fair amount of time taking photos of the people fully dressed up for the parties (most wandered around posing for photos). We found Venice so nice that we definitely want to come back, hopefully for Carnival. We didn’t attended one of the “parties” because they were 80 euros each to attend and require advance booking.

Torino

We figure the main reason we came here was because of the Olympics. The city is an industrial town and not all that pretty to see. This is why we didn’t stay for long. Although this didn’t stop us from taking a stroll along the river to have a better look at a castle. We had planned to spend the day exploring Torino, but since we didn’t want to stick around we headed off to our next stop. The RV store we stayed at the previous night had another store along the way to Venice so it seemed like a logical stop. This store however was not nearly as nice and we weren’t too sure where to park so we had to go in and ask.

Genola

We attempted to make it here today, but I had such a bad headache we ended up pulling over on the side of the road near a river in the mountains dividing France and Italy. The rock colours were very cool to see. Some were striped purple and white and others were burgundy. The next morning we took up the drive again. It was very windy and we did have to stop a few times because of sheep being on the road. When we arrived at the tunnel connecting France to Italy we had to wait 10 minutes before we could pass through. France was warm mostly, no snow anywhere except on some distant mountain tops and you could tell that even those parts were becoming green. Once we popped out of the tunnel and into Italy, it was a drastic change. There was about 2-3 feet of snow everywhere and it wasn’t for awhile before the snow stopped and we started to see the grass again. The place we stopped at was nice; it provided us with free electricity, and a complete service station. There was an amazing sunset that night, something we have rarely seen on this trip.

Monaco

We have a tendency to miss busses and trains by mere moments, and this was the case when visiting Monaco. The map the campsite provided us showed the train station just a short distance away, but it turns out that it was quite a bit further down the road. We had figured that it would take about 5 or 10 minutes to get to the station and we planned to be there 10 to 15 minutes before the train arrived, so we left the campsite 20 to 25 minutes before the train was scheduled to arrive. We missed the train by 5 minutes and had to wait about 45 minutes for the next one. The train ride was rather long but once we arrived we found a tourist office and made quick work of figuring out just where we were. The main harbor is just a few minutes walk from the train station and we spent most of our time here. Seeing the houses and large buildings built on so many different levels with the cliffs being in your face was great. Some of the boats in the marina were amazing, a few I found just perfect. I know I will never be able to buy one, but one can hope. While we were walking around I was tempted to visit a café, but at 8 euros a cup, we decided to just keep walking. We didn’t think we would see people ice skating while being here in Europe, but they had a small open air ice rink right on the harbor. Almost all of the skaters were using rented skates, figure skating style. We think two guys actually had hockey skates. We watched them skate for awhile before heading back to the train station. Tomorrow it’s off to Italy.

Villeneuve-Loubec

We picked up our bread delivery this morning at around 9:30, turns out we were the last to do so. We had planned on visiting Monaco today but since we weren’t fully geared up to go we decided to do something different. The campsite is mostly popular because of its location, but the main reason people come here is the large indoor/outdoor pool that is open year round (says our camping guide). So Julie and I finally got to use our bathing suits on this trip. We were the only ones swimming and we did so for a couple of hours. They have a hot tub too, but unfortunately it wasn’t running. You figure they would have it running in winter more than in summer. It was a very nice relaxing day and the dip in the pool felt amazing. We later walked through the park to a nearby grocery store for some supplies.

Nice

The campsite was fairly nice and even offered local bread service, which we took advantage of. We spent the first day washing our clothes and repairing the light with the silicone. Thankfully it worked without much of a problem. We originally signed up for 2 amps of service at the campsite, as it’s the cheapest, but we ran out of amperage when we hooked up our heater so we had to up it to 10 amps. We didn’t want to be cold when it could be prevented. The following day we woke early to catch the bus into Nice and go on walkabout. Nice was nice enough to spend a few hours in. The most interesting thing we saw was the photos along the beach front taken by a scuba diver. All the weird sea creatures could be found off the coast of Nice, some just 10 meters off shore. Most were gross looking. We wandered down the coast to a short, but steep hiking trail to visit some roman ruins. The fact that the tourist office mentioned it as a sight to see was why we ventured here. It was however, not worth it. The ruins could have been mistaken for a pile of rocks. The hike though did provide a great view over Nice and its beach. There were many sun bathers, some topless and this is in January! We saw some people take a dip, but they only lasted a few seconds in the water. Nice’s beach was by far the strangest one we have come across. There was no sand to be found, just small round rocks.

Cannes

Ah, the lovely city of Cannes. Honestly I think celebrities only come here because they have to for the film festival. The waterfront was the nicest we have seen in Europe thus far. That didn’t do it for us though. The main strip was nice enough, but the constant traffic is a huge distraction. We took our van to a Speedy hoping that we could get the lights fixed but they said it would have to be done by an electrician or a VW dealership. Luckily there was a VW dealership just down the street so we made our way there. After waiting around an hour for help they told us we would have to wait about 5 days before they could fit us in. This didn’t work for us, so we made our way to the campsite in Villeneuve-Loubec which is just outside of Nice. We are using the campsite here to tour Nice and Monaco. We were also going to use it to visit Cannes, but since we weren’t impressed with what we saw, it was just Nice and Monaco.