Day 202 - Where did all these relatives come from?

Milan to Venice - Hotel Florida

Today was the day for our visit to M's Dad's home town of Piazzola Sul Brenta, not far from Padua, and of course to meet even more relatives. We set off early for the three hour trip, with Uncle Pietro driving us, doing a great job in the hectic Milan traffic for an 82 year old!

When we reached Piazzola Sul Brenta we first stopped by Villa Contorini, an impressive old "villa veneto", before heading to the house. M's plan was to stop by, meet a few relatives, take some pics and leave again. How naive we were, one glance at the length of the table set up in the garden and we knew this wasn't going to be a small affair! Unfortunately not many people spoke English but many people did their best to try and talk to us anyway.

One thing of special interest to us, when we were at Dakar concentration camp in Munich, M found a reference to a man who had died there with the same surname and home town as M's dad. One elderly auntie at the lunch remembered him, he was a great uncle of M's (i.e. M's dad's uncle) who went to Germany to work and then was imprisoned when Italy "changed sides" during WW2 - a piece of family history saved by chance.

After a traditional Italian lunch in the beautiful outdoor setting, photos were taken and many kisses were given to take back to Australia. We were then driven to the train station in Padua to catch the train to Venice, less than an hour away.

We arrived in Venice and exited the station right on the Grand Canal to find the place swarming with tourists. They say that something every visitor should do in Venice is to get lost - K has an excellent sense of direction so we rarely have a problem in this area. However when we headed off for an evening walk after dinner, it didn't take us long to get hopelessly lost - so it seems K's sense of  direction doesn't work in Venice!