Venice is an amazing city. Why they would build a city in such an unstable place is beyond me. The whole future of the island is a constant battle against subsistence, water and air pollution. Apart from this it is a city like no other and I would encourage anyone to go there and explore the maze of alleyways at least once. The only thing that let it down for me was the crowds. Also the advertising they had plastered around the most photographed bridge, the bridge of sighs. I had a lovely relaxing time with my fiance, she even brought me a new tyre, toiletries bag and spare t-shirts amongst other goodies.
The first night I experienced an apocalyptic storm. First it hit with strong 
winds that pushed the wall of the tent in to touch me. Then came hail stones the size of golf balls and heavy rain. All accompanied by a lit sky from constant lightning. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t pooping myself, especially as I was camped under a rather large tree. I could hear screaming outside as most tents got flooded. Luckily I’d wisely chosen slightly higher ground so my tent ended up on an island.
At the campsite I met an interesting artist named Ian Wildgoose. We chatted for hours about this, that and the other and he gave me a cap. Its nice to meet interesting people like this along the way. He is commissioned to do amazing works of art around Venice. Just before I left I also met a cycle tourer who was travelling from Zagreb to London. He had the same tent as me and a very similar setup of bike.
I left early with my new tyre weighted down with all my new bits-n-bobs. Today I was heading towards Trieste but not going quite that far. The plan was to camp about 30km away and go north through the mountains into Slovenia tomorrow.
The road out of Venice is busy and the exhausts from the traffic are choking. I cycled North past Marco Polo airport where the traffic died down. There is an autostrade that goes directly to Trieste so most of the traffic uses this, leaving the roads nice and quiet for me.
The land is flat the only inclines were crossing bridges over dykes. This meant I could get a good pace going. After dinner I caught up with another cycle tourer named Antonio. He is doing a ride from Italy to Istanbul. We rode together for a while and chatted about our trips until I headed south to the campsite.
Tomorrow I have mountains to climb so it’s an early night for me.