We had a relaxing resort morning at Villaggio Europe near Grado. This is what normal people do on holiday. It was a bit rainy so nothing much was happening.

There are lots of families around with kids screaming around on bicycles. There is one particular young hoon around 4 years old who has an electric bike he doesn’t need to pedal. He screams around faster than any other cyclists – the other kids try to keep up with him. He will be deadly once he is 17!

When the weather improved we went to the pool and had a swim. There is a stream area that goes around the edge of the pool. We tried going against it but we got nowhere so turned around – and got washed around. Much easier!

Some kids were having great fun coming down the yellow water tube so Glenn decided to have a go.

He came down the skinny blue tube and really enjoyed it. So we both went up and had a go. I quite liked it actually. It’s been over 20 years since I last did that! We were the only adults to give it a go. It’s also actually surprising that not a lot of kids were coming down the tubes. When we were kids we would have been up and down there constantly. Maybe kids today find it too boring!?!?!? Or uncool??

The weather was warmer maybe 25 degrees but getting a little cloudy. We wanted it to cool down for us to go to the Valle Cavanata bird reserve only a few kilometers away.

So after a late lunch we got on our bikes and headed there. There are bike lanes all the way and it’s flat so it was an easy cycle of 5km

We are in the middle of lots of lagoons so it’s definitely a bird area. Glenn spotted a curlew in one of the lagoons.

At the first bird observatory there were a lot of the normal water birds.

I spotted a lone flamingo – very unusual as they usually congregate in big groups.

We continued cycling to the reserve visitor centre and had a chat with the bird expert there. He said it was off season – most birds are here March to May. The lone flamingo had a broken wing so had been left here. However the other flamingos are not too far away – just up the coast – and will be back soon.

We then went for a walk to check out the other observatories. The lake had been a large fish trap where fish were washed in on high tide and the couldn’t get out on low tide.

We found brambles that are ready now. In Scotland they are not ready for at least another month.

Glenn found a woodpecker and kingfisher.

We then cycled back to the resort.

As we were in Italy we decided to have pizza for dinner. Glenn was coming down with a cold so we thought take away was the best plan. We had to pick it up from the restaurant next to where all the shows were going on. We were obviously very late in eating as there were no queues for food – but lots for the bars. We were glad to get our pizzas and get back to our little quiet zone. I think we are turning into grumpy old farts.

After enjoying our pizza and listening to more of Australia’s Hottest 100 Glenn went to bed and I wasn’t much later. We had enjoyed our day on the resort.