Day 22 - 13th August - Leaving Rome

Today we decided that we would leave Rome and start making our way back north. This technically meant that we were starting on our way home which was a bit depressing but hey.

Rachel had decided to get up early and head to Rome to see a few last bit but I stayed in bed so was in charge with packing up and checking out. That done I sat and waited for Rachel to return.

We were on the road about 11ish and aimed to head back toward Florence and see how far we got. By early afternoon we seemed to be making pretty decent time so we decided to continue on as far as possible.

At around 3pm we got stuck in a horrible traffic jam which is not good for the van as being aircooled it relies on the air flowing over the engine when driving to cool it, No airflow means no colling. This means that if you are sat stationary for too long with the engine running in it may overheat. Add to the fact that it was 30c and this was not a good combo. With this in mind we decided to pull over at a service station for 45min to see if the traffic died down and to let the engine cool.

The traffic did not seem to be getting any better so after 45min we got back on the road and hoped for the best. After the best part of an hour and a half we got through the traffic and started making some progress. At around 6pm we stopped for some dinner . We somehow managed t pick the worst service station to do so but we were hungry and so just made do. We worked out that we were only about 220km from Venice and we decided that we should try push on and make it there tonight.

At around 10ish we finally made it to Venice after numerous stops for petrol and to let the van cool. It had taking us 11 hours with stops but we had made it. 520km in total. It was an absolute mission but we had made it and this meant we had a full day in Venice tomorrow.

Was not the best day of the trip but unfortunately due to the delays with breaking down we simply needed to cover a lot of miles.

Obviously arriving late at the campsite it was dark and we were told to “find a spot anywhere” which was easier said than done when nobody seemed to be in pitches, they just seemed to set up wherever they could. We did the same and had showers and then hit the sack.