We arrived in Venice! I’ll let the photos speak to the beauty and hustle bustle of the…

…place. Best to view them in landscape, full screen, and zoom in.

It’s gorgeous. The chaos and fumes of narrow roads is gone – replaced with similar in canals. The walks through town are delightful. So many shops and things going on.

It was supposed to be an easy transition for us today, with a one hour drive from our previous night’s stay near Verona. But it ended up being a big day. Here’s a list of our challenges and goofs today:

1. The police escort through Verona. That deserves its own post. Stay tuned.
2. We searched Booking.com for accommodation in Venice that included parking. We were aware that you can drive to Venice but not into Venice. We hoped to find accommodation that provided some parking so we wouldn’t have to arrange a shuttle, repack and lug bags too far. It was a long shot, but we found a match. It wasn’t until after we booked it that communication with the coordinator revealed that the “parking” was actually on the mainland, before the 4km bridge to Venice, and it cost extra. Some filter or listing needs fixing there. It was misleading. Anyway, we sucked it up and spent another hour or two figuring that out.
3. Fortunately, we had stopped just short of the 4km bridge into Venice for some lunch. The car park included some destination chargers, so we plugged in, tapped the payment card and went to walk away like usual. Uh-uh. It wasn’t working. Worse: when I tried to disconnect the cable, it wouldn’t release from the station. Although the car end was released, I couldn’t drive away and leave the cable. We contacted support for the Enel X charger. They were mostly useless. A phone recording told us that after consideration, Enel X had decided to discontinue support, two days earlier! 😡. One Irish guy on the phone, Bobby, tried to help by writing everything down, but it wasn’t his department. Some hours later we received some useless generic email from Enel X. After 45 minutes of idle, the cable magically disconnected. What a waste of time.

But, back to the destination. Venice is quite something to behold. We’re here for two nights.