12th May - Porto Corsini

11th and 12th May
Firenze to Porto Corsini (near Ravenna)

Arrival 48923km

An interesting journey up and over the mountains and down toward the coast, 2nd gear stuff both up and down for a good bit of the way, so although not a huge mileage was covered, it took a good 4 hours to get there. We ended up on the large camper stop area in Porto Corsini which has a charge of 7e per night. I'd say there were about 30 vans there when we got there, but by the next morning (Saturday, the place was heaving with about 60 or more vans and very noisy.


We did a small grocery shopping and Bruce cooked a nice pasta meal, and afterwards we headed towards the town and found a ferry that runs over the channel to Marina di Ravenna and had a snoop around there. We found a nice bar and had a drink there and wandered around for a bit. Marina di Ravenna is a nice small resort town, probably used by locals from Ravenna mostly. There are a few hotels,but mostly apartments, plenty bars and restaurants and shops. A pleasant enough little town with a nice beach. We made our way back to Porto Corsini on the ferry about 11pm and a bit later, there was a commotion as loads of cars came down the road next to the camper stop and were heading for the beach bar at the end of the track. I would have headed out but was just too wrecked after the days driving, and ended up crashed out on the bed.

ON Saturday we headed to the beach for a lazy day. We set up our towels and plonked ourselves down only to be moved on by the guy renting out the parasols and loungers, who told us it was a private beach. We moved slightly further along, only to be told by other people that that part was private too! Finally, we sussed out that there was a small strip of no man's land in between both the private bits, where people had set up their towels, so we did the same.....

We went swimming to cool off and the water was surprisingly (to me) not all that cold. We both ended up a bit burned, so decided to head off the beach and get some food in a small cafe. The food was ok - lasagne, but I had to send mine back as a it was a bit on the cold side. More ice cream was had..... the ice cream in Italy really is very good.

Back at the camping area, we ate in the van and made attempts to chill out, although the place was a bit noisy.

Tomorrow we head for Venice, hoping to stay at a campsite in the town of Lido di Jesolo and get a bus from there.