Saturday 5 October 2013

At the end of the day

It is late and I have just returned to the hotel after dinner. What a long day it has been, driving for most of it, from Cannero to Venice. The car has benn parked on the long term parking near Venice airport, and we took the Allilaguna ferry into  Venice. This took quite some time andj ours was the last ferry stop.
 I am back in my hotel room. It is tiny and none of the remote control buttons for the TV did anything at all. Nor was there anywhere to put my suicase, and all the lights were dim. Such things teach one to be more assertive, so I returned to the hotel desk and asked for stronger light globes and for something to place my suitcase on. On my return from dinner the man at the desk told me he had changed on of the light globes and he has also put a small table in the room upon which to place the suitcase. If you do not ask, you do not receive, and I now unabashedly plead age, decrepitude, bad eyesight, etc.

We had a good dinner and my friends collected me and returned me to the hotel. Tomorrow  I need to see it all in daylight and to memorise the way, and generally get my bearings. I do have some vague memories but have not stayed inthis part of Venice before, so it may take me a little longer than it should.

Driving across Italy is interesting (just as well) and the contrast between the plains and the mountains is dramatic. In Australia the mountains are low in comparison.  The mountains seem to appear quite suddenly. The vegetation seems very uniform, and to my mind the Australian Bush is far more interesting, but we do not have such dramatic waterfalls cascading so copiously and dramaticaaly down precipitous mountains. Nor do we have buildings and bridges of such antiquity. The country is so beautiful, with such great contrasts.  The buildings have fewer storeys, and there tend not to be
roofs with eaves, as though you do not need to design with regatd to the orientation of the sun, or to protect from the heat of summer.

It is very cool here and still not a hint of the sun. This dull weather must surely cramp the photographic style.

The extent and excellence of the road system is most impreesive and the traffic moves swiftly. Every so often a toll point will say Arrivederci, and we reciprocate. And so say I: arriverderci.

One of the many good things about the iPad is the Facetime and this morning I held up our departure by talking to my daughters and grandchi,dren. How fortunate we are so be able to use such marvels of technology, albeit, in my case, somewhat timidly and hesitatingly.

1 comment:

Elephant's Child said...

Thank you for taking this stay-at-home along with you. It sounds marvellous, albeit exhausting.