We make it to Venice!

It was our goal, endgame and mission to reach Venice. We did it.
Venice was a one day visit during an eight day stay at Marina di Venezia, a site near Jesolo on a spit of land which runs along the Venetian coast, east of Venice. The campsite could not have been further removed from the tranquility of Camping Mer de Glace. It had five pools, a private beach, nightly entertainments, a supermarket, shoe shop, hairdressers, bookstore, four restaurants...and was just a 40 minute water taxi ride from the heart of Venice.
Venice exceeded our expectations in bucketloads - it wasn't smelly for starters. It was incredibly hot, and tourists were in abundance, and tat was everywhere, but if you avoided St Mark's Square and the Rialto Bridge and all points inbetween along the Grand Canal you could find shade, and solace, and beautiful side streets, and incredible art.
This is us on our gondola ride...

Highlights of a stunning day out were the aforementioned gondola ride (had to be done but not cheap at 80 Euros for 40 minutes) but also a brilliant two hours exploring the home and art collection of Peggy Guggenheim. She was a fascinating lifeforce and is well worth reading about. In a nutshell, she was from a wealthy NewYork family, her father died aboard the Titanic, she started collecting art as a hobby and amassed works by pretty much every 20th century artist of renown, had a voracious sexual appetite, reputedly sleeping with more than 1,000 men, was married three times to artists and writers, including to Max Ernst, and loved dogs (her ashes are interred alongside a memorial to all the dogs she had doted on in her life.) We were only able to take photos in the gardens but the galleries inside include works by all of the greats...Picasso, Pollock, Miro, Duchamp, Dali, Kandinsky, Klee, Magritte.

We made a fleeting visit to St Mark's Square and journeyed up and down the Grand Canal by water taxi, but as much as possible tried to explore the side streets, often getting lost but always finding our way back to civilisation eventually.

   

Going downhill...fast

AUGUST 11th, 2013

We are now on day 11 of our adventure. We are in Chamonix, where the sun seems to be perpetually shining and the sky is a special kind of blue you only find when set against the purity of the snow.

Today is another first for both me and Oscar - we are going down our first VTT downhill run at Col de Balme. Neither of us are properly equipped for the adventure; I have a hybrid road/mountain bike with thin tyres and a survival instinct that keeps my hands always hovering over the brakes, while Oscar has a hand-me-down bike with dodgy stopping ability.

Our journey starts in La Praz, a few minutes' cycle from our campsite, where the brilliant VeloBus will collect us and our bikes and transport us 25 minutes up the valley to the cable car at Le Tour. What's more it's free. How cool is that? Here we are waiting for the bus in the pristine village of La Praz - incidentally, could there be a more pretty setting anywhere for a bus stop?

The cable car ride up is another opportunity to marvel at our surroundings. The view from the lower cable car shows off the whole valley through Argentiere towards Chamonix.

Once off at the cablecar station we transfer onto a gondola, with our bikes hanging off the side. At the top Oscar has a wobble - indeed, it's a bit steeper and more twisting than I was expecting too, and I find myself almost hoping he backs down so I have an excuse to give it a miss. As it turns out it is brilliant fun - Oscar has the odd hairy moment and one epic tumble, but we all emerge unscathed. He's really proud of his achievement; I'm just pleased to get off. A bike saddle is no place to place a bottom for long.

Oscar and I sun ourselves in the mountain sun on a terrace which also has a hot tub (if only we'd remembered our swimsuits!) while Felix and Richard do the same route again, although instead of taking the best part of an hour they are down in 12 minutes.

They spy out the blue route which goes from the base of the easier green route we have just completed down a steep hillside and into the valley. To my dismay they are toying with the idea - everyone else going down it is in full body armour and full faced helmets and they seem horribly scantily dressed by comparison - but in the end the imminent arrival of the last velobus takes the decision out of their hands. One for another day, I think.

We arrive at the bottom, slightly burnt from the intense sun, but exhilarated from yet another escapade. Chamonix is brilliant.

Back at the campsite Felix is still a bundle of energy so he and Richard cycle into Chamonix and take the cable car up to Planpraz and then across the impossibly steep ravine to Le Brevent. Their reward is a new perspective on the valley, the chance to watch some parapenters take off and to log some more locations to revisit in the winter. Me and Oscar meanwhile do what we love best - we snooze, read and chill out in the shade.

Later the same day...

AUGUST 10th, 2013

It's only mid-afternoon when we arrive back in Cham after our jaunt up to the Mer de Glace so we decide to aim high again and ascend the Aiguille di Midi for a closeup encounter with the highest mountain in western Europe.

The first section of the telepherique ride is in a full cable car holding 70 people, squashed together, and is a surprisingly scary affair - I'd forgotten from a previous visit how the rapid ascent can leave you feeling a bit heady and by the time we reach the midway station my head is thumping. We continue straight up to the top tower, at a very heady 3,842 metres. The views are truly stupendous, the appreciation of the engineering marvel involved in putting the cables and pulleys up is awe-inspiring, but I'm not keen to hang around. As it happens our late arrival means we have no choice but to descend on the next available cable car. Just time to take some photos, grab a coffee and, in Richard's case, jealously eye up the mountaineers heading off onto the steep snow ridges.

The day ends in typical franco fashion - a bottle of wine under a starlit sky, a game of Pass the Pigs, betting with curtain hooks on pontoon, a peaceful and contented sleep.