Morning in Romana di Lombardia was interesting. Jim had several trips to make to the car in order to have packing for Venice and for the day after sorted. On his first trip our English-speaking factotem reminded him about breakfast being complementary and we had every intention to avail of that. When we arrived in the breakfast room factotem was not to be seen but a full-blown row appeared to be going on in the kitchen overheard by two solitary impassive male diners and us. There was no one to herald us to the breakfast buffet or to suggest coffee/tea/chocolate. I found it hard to select yogurt or cheese or ham or whatever to the constant repetition from a male voice of "questa, questa, questa" interspersed with lengthy tirades from a female voice, possibly the mamma of the previous evening, and "basta, basta, basta". Either I am particularly sensitive or nervous or this was a serious row. I eyeballed Jim and he dismissed it all as Italian exuberance in the morning. Mamma exited kitchen nodding buon giornos to all 4 of us. That was swiftly followed by a male we had encountered briefly the night before but who obviously hadn't as much English as the other man. He pleasantly offered us coffee or tea while grunting tourrettesianly as he entered and left the kitchen. It was he who accepted our payment for our stay and he continuously grunted "Wo" at breathlike intervals in an extremely disconcerting way. Jim reckoned it was his way or relieving stress from his encounter with Mama! I just thought it was weird!
After getting en route in ever-decreasing circles courtesy of Nuvi we made our way to Gloria and Piero's house in Rovigo. We found the road but their number did not feature but finally they arrived to rescue us and welcome us into their home. Not having a common fluent language always has its difficulties but all 4 of us persevered and we enjoyed a typical Italian meal before being escorted by Gloria and Piero to the train station and to Venice and to the Campo del Ghetto and to our abode chez Marco (via Paola).Paola is the young woman who looks after Marco's apartment - beautiful and helpful and able to speak English. We had reached our Venice abode.
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| First Church after we got off the train at Ferrovaria. |
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| First gondola |
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| War Memorial in Ghetto Square where we met Gloria |
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