To Italy, and back

Eric and I planned to visit Italy in autumn 2020, but then the second wave of COVID-19 hit, infection numbers rocketed, and borders slammed shut. Two years later, we finally made it.

We wanted to do the whole trip on public transport, and partially succeeded – first driving from home to Laval, then taking trains from Laval to Paris, Paris to Turin, and Turin to Venice.

The holiday begins: a scenic bus ride across Paris from station to station. Taken from Pont Charles de Gaulle.

Shots from the train window, before and after crossing into Italy

All our trains ran on time, the connections worked, and we reached Mestre station just before 10 pm; a journey of about 14 hours, door to door.

And so … Venice.

Our first vaporetto journey. We went to the island of Murano by mistake, instead of down the Grand Canal. A particularly scenic wrong turn!

I went to Venice as a small child in the 1960s, but remember nothing except the lion statue in Piazza San Marco. Eric hadn’t been there at all. So everything was new to us – except, if course, that it wasn’t. Venice, I can confirm, is exactly like its photos – only more so. More canals, more bridges, more islands, more boats, more atmospheric alleyways and waterfront mansions, more jazz quartets and sparkly carnival masks.

A powerful, unsettling exhibit in the Palazzo Ducale – artwork by Anselm Kiefer, under a Renaissance ceiling

Those side canals and little bridges were irresistible.

View from Palazzo Ducale across the lagoon to San Giorgio

Eric went to a concert that included Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, in Vivaldi’s own church of Chiesa della Pieta. The same evening, I took some rather good photos of the Grand Canal all lit up, but lost them when my phone was stolen on the bus back to the apartment. Here’s a borrowed image instead.

And on to Rome …

… by train again, to stay with Sheena and Michele at their house near the Appian Way.

Their lovely terrace, looking across the park towards the Via Appia Antica – with Pepe the dog reflected …

… and dog-walking on Sheena’s birthday. By chance, we were together on both our birthdays in 2022.

The Roman leg of the trip was Eric’s dream holiday, with visits to the Catacombs of San Callisto, the Etruscan town of Tarquinia with its huge necropolis…

… and, obviously, the centre of Rome itself.

Multi-storey tenement, as seen on TV with Mary Beard (she was allowed inside; we weren’t)

Head of the Emperor Constantine,
in the Capitoline Museum

And, of course, there was the Colosseum

Getting home by train in a single day wasn’t feasible, so we compromised with a flight to Paris, before taking the train back to Laval.

To end on a note of grandchild cuteness – Hazel is getting the hang of being a big sister. Rory is massively impressed!

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