Grand tour - day 8

Journey: Venice to Gabicce Monte, Italy
Distance: 227 km
Campsite for the night: Camping Gabicce Monte
YouTube link: Days 8 & 9

After setting off from Venice, we decided to take the slower coastal route and go via the Parco Regionale Veneto del Delta del Po aka the wetlands in the Po river delta. Specifically, we headed for the Coastal Botanical Gardens, where there was a walk through the dunes and the promise of lots of birds.

The walk was beautiful: a mix of dunes, wetlands, the sea, a lagoon, very wet paths and lots of lizards. The birds however were less impressive. We saw a pigeon, a pheasant and a wader. The pheasant looked particularly out of place in the dunes, but regardless, we enjoyed our stop and had a picnic back at the van before setting off again.

We’d not been driving long when we saw a big supermarket immediately off the road, so decided to stop there as sometimes the supermarkets can involve a bit of faffing around to get to. At first we thought it was a discount store, but actually it had a good range of things that all looked to be of a decent quality. We bought a few additional bits for dinners and lunches, but the purchase we were most pleased with was a bumper pack of fennel. Four giant fennel bulbs for ¢99 (about 85p). After a couple of hours driving, we arrived at our campsite. It had some beautiful views hidden amongst the trees, but was a very basic site and not particularly inspiring.