The Italians are nicer than I thought

Murano Island

I last visited Italy on a camping trip with a student friend some 40 years ago and our experiences with the Italian people left us with the impression that they were unfriendly and unhelpful in spite of trying to use their language which they seemed determined to misinterpret.

This has now all changed. My wife and I spend five days in Venice at the end of April this year and they were a totally different experience. They could not have been kinder or more willing to go out of their way to help.

It only goes to show how wrong first impressions can be and how long they persist. We can strongly recommend Venice in the early Spring before the rest of the tourists begin to clog up the Grand Canal and delightful back alleys. It did help that the weather was unbelievably kind to us during our trip - even the odd shower of rain fell mainly at night.

We will be back.