Funny sort of inbetween day

After a scorching day in beautiful Verona yesterday, soon after dawn the heavens opened and the rain was unrelenting.

The night had been surprisingly peaceful given that we were in the heart of a busy Italian city, no horns blaring, no scooters zipping about., no shouting or fighting, clearly a very cultured city.

Just the distant music from some kind of concert or festival which went on until about midnight.

The rain posed us with a dilemma. Being in close proximity to Venice, I didn`t really want to do the obvious thing and run south to find the sun.

We have also been having two irritating little problems I`ll tell you about …

Firstly, driving through the many road tunnels we travelled through, I became aware that one of the headlight bulbs had blown and headlights are a requirement. I don`t want to attract the attention of the local rozzers, so a replacement was needed. I`d tried and couldn`t reach the back of the light unit to get to the bulb out.

An arm, with two double jointed elbow joints would be needed I think !

Secondly, I have been unable to get the fridge to light on gas, fine on 12 volt and 240 volt. This has been manageable so far, but now a lot of the Sostas in Italy don`t seem to offer hook to electric so it limits where we can stay to mostly campsites.

I know how to fix the fridge but need a part and can`t source it locally.

Available on ebay quite cheaply but need an address to courier it to.

So it was decided that we would stay for three nights at a campsite recommended to me near Venice with public transport onto the island on which the ancient City sits.

This would give me the opportunity to order the part from ebay and get three day courier delivery, hopefully.

So the part was duly ordered today and the delivery address given for the campsite.

To give a bit more time for delivery I decided we`d stay tonight on one of the few Sostas in the area, in the direction of Venice, with electric hook up so this site at Battaglia Terme was selected on that basis. (GPS 45.29171 11.77429)

It`s a small site and until a few minutes ago it looked like we were here on our own tonight, but a French motorhome turned up and so we have neighbours tonight.

The site sits on the edge of Parco Regionale deiColli Euganei which looks well worth further exploring tomorrow. There are some impressive volcanic hills in an otherwise mostly flat landscape. The name of the town Battaglia Terme, terme means spa in Italian, means there will be some thermal springs in the area and there are two very large hotels nearby with Spa`s and golf resorts, so it must be quite a popular area for tourists.

So tomorrow we will investigate further.

On the way here we called into Padua, which I think is a smaller and less impressive version of Verona. Scruffy suburbs and a heart of classical stone buildings and of course a Duomo.

Unfortunately it rained when we were there so didn`t see much of it.

Wandering around Battaglia Terme this afternoon, (rain ceased at last) I found a little friendly looking garage / workshop and went in to ask about the headlight “si si si dieci minuti” was the response. So I went and got Ed, drove round, fifteen minutes later, new bulb fitted, result !!! Cost 10 euro, how pleased was I ?

So although it`s been a bit of an inbetween day, it has been quite useful, one problem solved, and one in the process of being solved.

And tomorrows another day, after exploring the Park behind us, we`ll head to Venice, we probably won`t go to Venice City tomorrow  but Thursday looks likely. Weather dependant !

Not many photos today, but here`s tonights parking spot

Battaglia Terme Sosta