OUR FAMILY HOLIDAYS
0297 Overseas Holidays – Tours from Rimini, 1976
When we were on holiday there, at Rimini we took the obligatory day trip to Florence. As was the tradition on such trips, we stopped just outside the city, to visit a ‘leather factory’ where the courier presumably received a commission on the sales he brought in! As a result, and also as usual, we didn’t arrive in Florence until after all the museums had closed; and left before they reopened. Accordingly, we saw just the main square and the Ponte Vecchio bridge – and were just as disappointed with the city.
The start of the time-honoured tour of Florence
After a while, we started to get even more adventurous, when we went by train to Ravenna. We went by train since it was not that popular a tourist attraction. The train journey, if somewhat scary where we weren't certain of the language or what we were doing, was an exciting experience. In the Ravenna itself we saw the golden mosaics in the cathedral which are very impressive -- as well as very old – and which had been the main objective of our excursion. We were even more impressed, though, by the blue mosaics in the princess's tomb in the grounds that cathedral. As a bonus there was also the big tomb, with its enormous stone roof, which was the burial place of the king of the Goths.
Miles in the
cathedral
and at the tomb
The longest trip from there was to Venice. As usual we drove for several hours before parking at the station on the mainland, and then being taken by boat to St Mark's Square. There we were decanted and had something like two to the three hours to explore the whole of the city! Despite the short time, the children were impressed by Venice and we did see the main sites – including the Doge’s Palace – and went on the traditional (very expensive) gondola ride.
Our gondolier
And on the top of the campanile
At that stage I still thought Venice was a lovely city. It was only later that I came to feel that it was something like a film set, with painted facades and scaffolding behind them. But at that time it was a good experience.
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