Another foggy cold morning reminds us of the incoming winter. Since the place we were staying at had no internet there wasn't much to do to kill time other than head out for a walk around these strange ponds next to the house. The trees were stunning autumn colours but we couldn't figure out what the estuaries were used for. Lew caught up with his parents about our day yesterday during the walk as I had caught up with mine yesterday as we drove from Florence to Modena. Alessandro (our kind host) allowed us to leave our bags in the apartment whilst we went to the Pagani factory. We left at 1030am as it was a 20 minute drive away. The accommodation which we chose was such a great location for everything we have visited!

Pagani was located in more of an industrial area compared to what we saw at Ferrari yesterday. Parking the car on the street there were a few people milling around a car inside the gates of the factory. The factory was clearly very new and they have limited tours during the week in which you have to book in advanced. Outside the museum was a Pagani Huayra Roadstar in a beautiful blue that is their latest car built this year. The name Huayra comes from the God of the wind in the Quetchua culture from Argentina since the car is incredibly aerodynamic. It took Pagani 7 years to bridge the gap between engineering and art in order to create such a elegant yet incredibly fast car. This was just a small taster as we were yet to start the tour which includes the museum and seeing the factory. At 11am our guide rounded us all up and had to speak four (quattro) different languages When she spoke since we had such a varied group with Spanish, English, Italian and French. The museum was rather small compared to that of Ferrari but the women explained how Pagani was started. In 1955 Horacio Pagani was born in a small Argentinian town called Casilda and as a small boy he spent much of his time drawing and carving miniature car models out of wood and dreaming of creating the most beautiful car in the world. In 1979 At aged 21 Horacio and his friend Gustavo build the Pagani F2 taking them about a year and over 5 thousand hours. The Pagani F2 made its debut at the Las Parejas arena piloted by a famous F2 champion Augustin Beamonte. Believe it or not the next step for Horacio was that he moved to Italy to work for Lamborghini (Ferrari didn't want him). Working his way up in the company he became head of the composites department and In 1985 was asked to design a car for the 25th anniversary of the company. The Lamborghini Countach Evoluzione became the first car to be made entirely out of composites. However, Lamborghini underestimated the project and had to scrap it due to the cost cutting associated with the Gulf War and the only Countach Evoluzione built was the prototype - which is in this museum! In 1991 Horacio finally went out on his own starting a company called Modena Design and a year later Pagani Automobili Modena was also founded. It took him 7 years to produce the Pagani Zonda where it was unveiled in the 1999 Geneva Motor Show blowing the socks off a lot of people and really getting the Pagani name out there. Next came the Zonda S in 2000 and then the Zonda F in 2005 and during the tour we were told that not one of these Zondas have anything in common other than their name. The Zonda F was named after Pagani's friend Juan Fangio a 5 time world champion in F1 who Pagani had shared many ideas, projects and dreams with. Once we had been shown all the cars and the women  had told us a bit about them we were allowed a brief bit of time to take photographs. This big burly security guard followed us all around watching our every move which made us feel a little uncomfortable. Before we were taken into the factory we had to get rid of basically everything on us, most especially our phones and cameras due to the fact that we are entering into their actual product assembly line and I guess they don't want any secrets leaked! Lew was just fizzing as the doors opened and we began walking onto the factory floor. There were cars left right and centre and some were still being worked on as bit of carbon fibre we being wheeled across the floor in front of us. The factory itself was rather nice with lots of natural light and cute street lamps lining the outside of the floor area and brick archways for the doors, he had clearly brought the tuscan countryside inside. We had to stay between two black lines for "insurance reasons" and once again the security guard tailed the group. We were only really allowed to walk in an L shape viewing the large autoclave and some of the cars parked up mostly completing and having their interiors fitted out. There was a stunning blue and black one and the women explained that Pagani has designed this special paint that allows the carbon fibre strands to be seen through it still. She also told us that these cars can be completely custom and the purchased can ask for whatever they want even if it is a ridiculous request. The price however is exuberant and there is also a 2 years waiting list for your car to be produced. Everything is hand done and the ability to customise your car makes the process take a long time. The funniest thing was that bang smack in the middle of the factory was Mr Pagani's Porsche 911R and our guide explained to us that when Mr Pagani sees beauty he doesn't care whether it is a Ferrari, Porsche or anything he appreciates it for what it is! But I think there was mention of him biking to work still which is what he did everyday when he was working for Lamborghini also. The tour didn't last long and before we knew it we were back out in the foyer asking questions. I told Lew he should ask how he can apply for a job but I think he was a bit shy to do so, I think it certainly would have got a chuckle from the group! We were allowed to go back into the museum and watch the video of his life and also to view the cars inside for longer. It was 12.30pm when we left driving back to the house to pick up our gear.

We were both starving and after loading everything up we located a nearby pizzeria and picked up a couple of the usuals where we sat in the car on one of the side streets eating. Mine was awfully salty with my usual of olives, capers and anchovies and left me drinking around 5 bottles of water during the afternoon! We were both stuffed and had a bit of a post lunch slump as we headed onto the Autostrada to drive the 1.5 hours to Venice! Since Venice is an island that is pedestrian only we had planned to leave the car at the Best Western hotel parking. Lew had emailed them previously and said while we can't pre-book there may be a chance we would be able to park there on the day. Sure enough we arrive and drive around the block for literally 5-6 times since some road works was preventing us from entering the park and we couldn't find another entrance. Lew made me get out and speak to the people at the front desk who then told us due to the fact that they were doing work on the carpark they were only able to give the park to hotel guests. We totally should have had a back up plan and we ended up on the side of the street looking for other options. This was the best since it was right across from the train station but everything else in the area was very expensive €16 ($27 NZD) per day compared to the €10 ($16.90 NZD) we were going to pay at the hotel. Finding one a good 20 minutes walk from the train station we headed in that direction only to learn we would have to book in advance to get the good rate of €14 ($23.70 NZD) per day but the man did point us in the direction of another park called Costa parking which was only €12 ($20 NZD). Finding a sufficient park and conforming that we were actually going to be paying €12 a day and not something else we pulled out our two backpacks, two food bad and our very large Osprey bag which is what we were going to drag into Venice with us. We had removed some clothing out of the bag that we were certainly weren't going to wear within the next 3 days which included short shorts and merinos mostly, and it made a significant difference to being able to get the zip closed! So for 20 minutes we walked the streets of the small town Mestre with the locals all looking us up and down and wondering what on earth we were off to. I was glad Paul had told us we need to stay in Venice itself and not catch the train in everyday which will allow us to enjoy the atmosphere a lot more (there certainly isn't any in Mestre!). The train was a cheap €2.50 ($4.20 NZD) for the both of us and locating the correct platform we waited for our 1704pm train to Venice. The sun was really setting at this point and we knew we would be walking the streets of Venice in the dark as we arrived. The train took only 12 minutes to get to the St Luca stop in Venice and leaving the train station it was like nothing I have ever seen before. There was the most beautiful lit up buildings with the canal of seawater sloshing around and private boats, water taxis and water buses moved past each other. It wasn't a bad time of night to arrive as the local day trippers had gone home for the night and it was a little less busy. For a total of €15 ($25.40 NZD) Lew and I were able to catch the water bus to the stop closest to the apartment we were staying in where our host Marco was going to meet us. The boats certainly get a work out as they slam it into reverse as we came up to each jetty and more people piled on and off. Some of the boats were completely packed with not an inch to spare and ours was the same at times and we bunched in as tight as we could. It took about 20 minutes on the boat and sure enough as we exited onto the jetty Marco was waiting to walk us to the apartment. It was nowhere near Google Maps had told us were going to be and we had contemplated getting off at another stop since it looked closer but gut instinct told us we should listen to the local.

Three flights of stairs up a building he let us into a newly renovated place with guess what!!!! AN OVEN :D. The place was lovely and seemed as though it was in a lively area as well which we would check out soon. He showed us around the place which took awhile since he was very thorough before leaving us to it. We had taken a risk booking this place since it had no reviews when we did. We figured it could either be really great since the host would go out of their way to get some good reviews associated with the place or it would be terrible and have lots of teething problems. For dinner we had brought everything in except some meat and headed out to find the supermarket which Marco has given us directions too. The lanes we walked down were adorable and we were so pleased with the area we choose - The San Polo District. We bookmarked many shops to come back to in the morning as it had a slight touristy feeling to it but more well done with lots of tasteful shops. Walking near the supermarket we located the famous Rialto Bridge  which we would check out more in the daylight. For dinner we had brought some BBQ chicken and had this with salad and cauliflower. Man it was nice to have internet! Something we certainly take for granted. We also had homemade chocolate self-saucing pudding which is a nice reminded of home and always makes the day better. Goodnight everyone :D xo