In the papers.....

There will be an article on Archie's story in the Citizen this Saturday, 19th April. Nathan and Craig will also be appearing on FTV (thisisgloucestershire website) next Wednesday. They will also be in the Forester newspaper on the 24th April, and the Forest and Wye Valley Review, with a Citizen article to follow.

We are home!

After 7 days away, we finally arrived home at about 9pm last night. Dropping Craig off and driving home on my own was quite a sad experiance, smart2venice was finally over.

We had a great time, an experience that we'll never forget, and an experience that was a lot harder than we thought, both physically and emotionally.

It was amazing to see Kate and Archie, something I'd been looking forward to since I left.

Thank you again to everyone who has donated, and for the messages we've had since we've been back. I couldn't possibly mention everyone who has helped with smart2venice, there are too many, but you know who you are, thank you.

It's not too late to donate! You can still use the links on the website. I'll be putting up a new front page with photos from the trip next week, and we'll hopefully soon be able to give a total.

Thanks again for reading,

Nathan and Craig

Epinal, France, last night away.

Hi everyone,

Thanks again for reading. Craig and I have just arrived at the hotel in Epinal, France (7pm). We left Venice this morning at 8am, so a very long day!

We started by hand delivering a thank you letter to Caffe Florian at 6.30. It was a wonderful time to be on St Mark's square, just us and one man sweeping up. We then had breakfast with our parents at the hotel and set off on a ferry to pick up the smart.

Craig was quite down about leaving Venice, but I have to admit I can;t wait to get home and see Kate and Archie, this has been one of the longest weeks of my life!

We actually got on the wrong ferry, meaning we needed to walk about a mile with our suitcases in the rain!

We then drove around Milan, through Switzerland, and into France. We now have a 5 hour drive to Calais, then the Ferry, then a few more hours in the UK. This means we should be arriving home at some point tomorrow.

Thank you again everyone so much for reading about our adventure, we can see how many people look at the website each day, and it's been amazing, keeping us going!

Now I'm off for an early night ready for the long drive home tomorrow. I'll write more tomorrow night when we should be back in Gloucestershire!

Nathan and Craig.

Caffe Florian

Nathan and Craig have just visited the fantastic Caffe Florian in St Mark's Square. We were met outside by the 'Direttore' Franco Ottaviani. We then had lunch with Franco, where he explained the history behind Italy's oldest coffee house. (See video) We then met Silvia Zanella who handed us an envelope containing a huge donation, collected from the staff at Caffe Florian. I couldn't believe it, what a wonderful gesture, it really left a tear in my eye.

Below are some photos of our visit, with Franco, Silvia and the waiters. What a wonderful experience, and we thank them from the bottom of our hearts.



The visit really made the end of our trip special, and I don't think any Venice trip would be complete without a visit to Caffe Florian.

Thank you!

What an amazing day! Venice.

Wow, what a day we've had today. We started by missing our turning onto the motorway, I (Nathan) was messing around with the sat nav last night and accidentally switched it onto 'shortest distance' mode, rather than 'fastest route.' It turns out that the 'shortest distance' from Lake Garda to Venice takes you across about 30 miles of mountain roads. Hairpin corners with very big drops the other side.

If we'd have gone over we'd have been able to phone our loved ones before hitting the bottom.

It was amazing, so glad we went the wrong way, drove some roads that we'll never forget!

Then, the big moment. We drove through some pretty tasty traffic before crossing the long bridge onto the island of Venice. That was also a feeling we'll never forget.

Then, on the ferry up the grand canal Nathan described everything live on the radio to John Rockley. The timing couldn't have been better, and another moment we'll never forget.

Tomorrow is our full day in Venice before the long drive home Thursday and Friday, we are expecting the return journey to take about 20 hours spread over two days.

Write more tomorrow, thank you so much for reading, and thank you to everyone who has donated! (Another reminder that none of the money donated will go towards funding the trip, every single penny donated goes to Gloucester Royal Hospital's SCBU)

Nathan and Craig.

WE ARE IN VENICE!!!!!!!!

WE ARE IN VENICE!!!!!!!!

Nathan & Craig

Lake Garda

Hi Everyone, greetings from Lake Garda!
Hope you all managed to catch us on the John Rockley show (radio bbc gloucestershire) this morning we should be speaking to John again tomorrow so get your radios ready.
Great day today the drive was amazing, quite a bit longer than we anticipated, but amazing all the same. Both feeling tired tonight after a long day in the Alps, Craig managed to go for a run in the beautiful scenery this morning and Nathan still feeling homesick and counting down the days until he's home!

Off for an early night now ready for big day tomorrow when we will take the.......... SMART 2 VENICE!!!!

Hopefully be in touch from Venice

Nathan & Craig

More from Luzern....

It's 11pm and we've just finished for the night in Luzern. We've made some adjustments to our return Journey. Instead of doing four nights on the way back we are now doing one (!) Nathan is homesick.

This means we should arrive home at around midnight on Friday. Driving 18 hours in two days is easy, isn't it??

We had an unscheduled country added to our itinerary when we made an unscheduled left turn into Germany! Very nice it was too!

It's snowing here now, so we might need a shovel in the morning to unleash the beast (smart car).

We should be on the John Rockley show tomorrow giving a live update from the Alps, between 11.30 and 12.00 on BBC Radio Gloucestershire.

Will write tomorrow if the Internet is working in Lake Garda, we still aim to arrive in Venice on Tuesday,

Craig and Nathan

Luzern, Switzerland.

We have arrived in Luzern, lots of snow, lovely hotel. We are going to have a drive down to the lake to see what's about. We will write more later tonight, but until then here are a few photos from our drive across the French Alps this morning.

Write more later!

Nathan and Craig.

Nancy

We are in the hotel room in Nancy, after about 6 hours of driving today.

We know this might sound like a bit of a silly statement, but it's a really long way, France just keeps on coming!

We are getting used to the roads now, the auto routes today were fantastic.

The hotel in Nancy is much nicer than the one in Calais. Nancy is actually much bigger than we expected, lots of town driving experience today.

We arrived in Nancy and went for a walk, it was pouring with rain, but we were determined to find somewhere that was showing the Gloucester V Munster game. We managed to find two Irish Bars, both without a TV! We ended up staying in the hotel room and listening to the whole match on the radio through the laptop with one ear piece each.

Going to have an early night ready for another big drive tomorrow.

Tomorrow night we should have crossed into Switzerland and will be sleeping in Luzern at the foot of the Alps.

Write more then!

Nathan and Craig.

We are in Calais!

Hi everyone,
We have arrived in Calais, and I'm typing this in our hotel room. It's been a very long day. An amazing amount of money was donated outside Tesco in Gloucester, nearly 300 pounds, so thank you very much to everyone there who gave to our cause. We then rushed across Gloucester to the BBC studio to be on the John Rockley Show, which was great! Good to see John again.

We arrived early for the ferry, so got on an earlier one. It was quite tough to see England disappearing into the distance, and i really, honestly can't wait to see it, Kate and Archie again.

Driving in Calais was a bit of a shock! I (Nathan) drove off the ferry, then we took a wrong turn and accidentally drove back into the port, we didn't realise until we came face to face with passport control.

I then think we went down a road the wrong way, but we are learning from our mistakes!

Everything is closed in Calais, so we haven't been able to find anything to eat, so the 'all you can eat' breakfast will get a hammering in the morning!

We are off to bed now, more fun and games tomorrow, our destination is Nancy, hopefully write more then!

Nathan and Craig

The 1873 Gloucester vs Munster tickets were sold for £300. The kind folk of shedweb also donated a further £45. Thanks for your support. Come On GGLLLAAAAAAAWWWWSS

The smart2venice blog.

We have now cleared the blog ready for the trip. We will be updating this every day of the journey with a diary, photos, and video from the road. We will leave Tesco in the cattle market, Gloucester, at around mid day on 4th April 2008.