Sunday 15^th April 2018

Dave posting,

Light rain woke us this morning, it’s 8am, the kettle is on for the first cuppa of the day. We are thinking about Venice and going there, so a small amount of research in to places to park and visit, we use numerous resources, A Life In The Slow Lane, Our Bumble, Our Tour, Charlie the Chucklebus.

Time is creeping up on us and now we have to get ready to move off before 11.30am (Camping Sirmione) as is the sites rule, the bill for 3 nights on the superior pitch was €96.60, although expensive it’s definitely worth the money in our opinion, it was like a mini holiday in the tour.

We drove towards Pescheria and spotted a LIDL, in we go and buy groceries. We stay put and switch the wifi/mifi on, more Venice researching over crackers and humous. We don’t want to get a train or bus in to Venice, we want to “arrive” in a water bus, vapourette, so we decide on a plan. The plan involves stopping in the NE area of Venice and catching a water bus, but we need a cheap overnight stop tonight.

Using Search for Sites we found a free Sosta at Treviso, a quick read of the Sosta reviews in Search For Sites and we are heading there now. The coordinates say nearly 3 hours journey, so I re-format the sat nav to include tolls and motorways and now it’s only 1hr 45 mins via the A4 motorway.

A few minutes later we leave the LIDL car park and in 3 kms we roll up to the ticket machine at the start of the toll motorway, ticket issued, and we are on our way for 140 kms of motorway driving.

The weather changes to rain, the motorway is a decent drive with good road surfaces compared to the toll-free roads that run parallel to the toll roads and no lorries at all. (I think that in some European countries HGV movement is not allowed on Saturdays and Sundays).

The strange thing over here is there are no signs or information about toll road costs, or distances or towns, you just get on and worry about the euros when you exit!

Listening to The Eagles and Foreigner albums & 90 minutes later we are coming down the exit slip road to the toll booths, we stop and put the ticket in, well we first of all I have to stand up in the footwell to reach the machine, it asks for €11.50, that’s cheap! well what a pavlava, I tried my pre-paid MasterCard three times, I tried cash but the machine wouldn’t accept notes, and now the remote ticket machine operator is telling me what to do in Italian through a loudspeaker. Mastercard, credit card, visa card, he says, I said “I am trying it but it’s not accepting it!”

This goes on maybe five times, suddenly a receipt is printed, and the barrier raises, off we go then grabbing the receipt. A minute late Cathy says the receipt value is zero, but our Reg. No. is on the receipt. We continue for a few minutes when a police car appears out of nowhere, sirens on and flashing lights, Cathy says “they are coming after us Dave!” as they drove by quickly.

Pulled up in Treviso at the Sosta, it’s attached to a huge car park which is very full for 6pm on a Sunday night. Selected a spot and put the kettle on, it feels ok with 5 other motorhomes here. There are 3 other motorhomes in the corner that look they have been here a while. The police patrol car drove around a couple of times in the evening before 11pm, it’s an okay spot, earplugs in to soften the noise of the noisy rail track 250 metres away.

Treviso is by all means a lovely place to visit but we just wanted to sleep, Venice awaits and we’re excited.

Goodnight

Dave