Arriving Venice

The Diary of Sonsy Lass
Alex & June Laidlaw
Mon 17 Jun 2013 09:23
45:26.236 12:22.431 We slowly made our way up the Croatian coast doing a bit of island hopping and discovering beautiful quiet little bays to anchor in. This was in contrast to the small but very busy towns further south. It seems no matter where we are, the scenery is stunning, with ragged hills and mountains dropping straight into the aqua coloured sea. The evening get togethers with the rally boats were of course lively affairs even with the very early rises. Some crew however weren't exactly bright eyed and bushy tailed! Before Pula the rally did split into two groups because of crew changes and mechanical problems. We had 5 boats in ours and the other 3 were a day behind. One boat pulled out in Corfu because of work commitments.
Our check out of Croatia was in the beautiful little town of Rovinj which had a remarkable Roman coliseum. For such a tiny place this was quite a surprise.

We finally reached Venice on 12th June and 5 boats sailed (under engine) right up to St Marks Square. It was truly awesome with literally thousands of boats from buses to taxis to cargo, careering every which way and causing a terrific amount of wake. All we could do was to stand our ground and pray we'd get out without crashing. Which we did and then found our marina which is on a very small island so its the water bus or dinghy to get off to explore Venice proper. It is a remarkable city with hundreds of canals, magnificent buildings that go way back and extremely narrow streets. A really great place to end the rally. Our final dinner was a fantastic affair with delicious food and wine.

It was quite an emotional scene when some of the boats left for Croatia or to go down the Italian coast. We are hoping we will all be able to meet
with a few of them as we make our way back down south then onto Sardinia.

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