A Gnome Abroad - La Spezia and Venice 

This is how classes should be taught, we'd learn way more.

Microsoft reviewing user data: "Why does this guy keep circling naval bases? Should we tell someone?"

I remember La Spezia from Jingles' WoWS Roma video, saying he's visited it a couple of times himself and that it's a very nice town. Then I remembered how Roma was sunk, and that Jingles is flying an aeroplane, and I came to the conclusion of *uh oh* _Jingles N O_

I never understood people (mainly Brits and Americans) who go to a foreign country for vacation and never try out the local stuff. I'm Greek and every time I visit downtown Athens the Macdonald's there is mostly full of tourists and my thoughts are "common guys you can do better than that".

I once went to La Spezia in a Pusser's Grey War Canoe. I remember bringing on and later removing shoreside power cables while the ship was separated from the jetty by a couple of pontoons. 26 cables in all, it took the entire Stoker dept. about 3 hours each time. I also took the opportunity to go to Pisa by train. I found a tower that was definitely built straight, and another which was leaning over somewhat. Which told my Stoker eye that the Italians can build a proper tower, which meant this guy got lazy and did a cowboy job!

Well Italians really do know how to cook great food. Loving this little series of yours keep the stories coming.

Couple of things about Venice: It was defended by hundreds of fortifications and cannons, it could have easily kicked Napoleon's butt, but at that time he was seen as a 'liberator' that would have freed the city from foreign influence so instead of fighting the authorities simply handed the city to him. Another curiosity is that the Arsenale (flyover at 7:14 ), or the shipyard of the Venetian republic was so frighteningly efficient that when an important diplomat came to the city he was invited to see them in the morning and put their initial on the keel log of a ship, then before retire for that same evening they were invited back, and lo and behold and entire warship was built on that keel on a single day. One more mention is that Venice is home of the San Marco Regiment, one of two amphibious forces of Italy. The location is ideal both from a tradition's prospective, and a practical one since the many islands and wetlands of the lagoon are perfect training territory. EDIT: the reason for the stench of the canals is an urban legend, while in the past they were indeed used as sewer, it's been over a century since septic tanks have become the mandatory way to deal with waste. The rotting smell comes mostly at the end of summer, when parts of the lagoon have seen a bloom of surface algae. That bloom covers in shadow the bottom of the lagoon, stopping any photosynthesys and literally sucking away the oxygen in the water, this way any plant life present dies of hypoxia, which in turn removes the roots of the surface algae, killing them as well. The dead plants start rotting away and that produces the smell that can be felt throughtout the lagoon.

Thank you for your navy-time stories. Really appreciate you giving us those insights. Just a sidenote to your comment about Venice using their canals as sewers, this is luckily not true anymore for quite some time already. Yes, the canals can still get a bit smelly from time to time, but simply because it's seawater with everything that comes with it and since the city doesn't get the tides as strongly, it's more or less sitting there to warm up and stew in the sun. So pumping sewage in the canals is forbidden now, because it really affected sealife in the lagoon and also damaged the buildings. Disclaimer: I'm neither from Venice myself nor even Italian, but I'm a historian with a focus on Italian renaissance history (and a special pet-peeve for Venice) from Austria.

I visited Venice in 1992 during June and I can attest that the canals do indeed get ripe, as Jingles states.

I am really enjoying these Microsoft Flight Simulator videos you put out.

I don't understand who dislike this videos and why??? I am so happy i discovered Mr.Jingles and beaing entertained by for 7 years now! Love you Sir and keep on doing great videos!

Tip for those who want to visit Venice: DON'T GET A HOTEL ON THE FAMOUS ISLAND BIT! THE ROOMS ARE TINY AND EXPENSIVE! Get a hotel on the mainland and use public transit to go visit the touristy bits!

the one time I went to Venice, there was this sandwich shop on the corner of St. Marks Square at like the far side the clock tower, idk what I got but was some kinda cheese on some kinda meat and it was the best sandwich I've ever tasted

Jingles, you are bringing back some very fond memories! My wife and I toured Italy in 2003, also very few fast-food joints back then and none in Venice! A few people of our tour including us ended up in a restaurant where no one could speak any English... Recipe for disaster, I tell you! That was where I met Carpaccio for the first time. I asked the waiter wat it was, and he said in the worse English possible "cold meat". We thought it was something like ham so we all ordered it! You can imagine the surprise! The two Americans with us just pushed back their plates and said: "We can't eat that!" I must admit that it was quite delicious and back home, ordered it again, only the Italian version is much better! Now for some history. Venice was built on those islands to escape the barbarian invasion after the Roman Empire fell. It worked, except that they then became the target of pirates in ships! The kitchens of all the houses are built on the top floor and the reason for that is that if a fire broke out, only the top floor of the building would be destroyed. Quite clever!

Disclaimer: Venice is very expensive and the waiters are usually not very kind. The city is focussed on tourism. If you want to eat out in Venice, take rural, less busy streets, and try to find a restaurant there. Otherwise u pay high for mediocre service. Food is usually good tho

La Spezia also has one of Italys biggest naval museums. They have a lot of very fancy model ships in there, ranging from 1910s era to 1970s era ships. Also have a large collection of very explosive items, such as naval shells and torpedoes as well as a large number of smaller weapons.

Thank you jingles for once again when in the mist of having a severe anxiety attack your videos have helped me to calm down... I consider you my online Grandpa and its great to have videos where you talk about your life. Thank you again for your content It has become a great way for me to cope and recover.

Great video, always love these. Is it just me, or does anyone else have assassin's creed flashbacks when flying over Italian cities?

Glad to know my taxes were hard at work giving Jingles a lovely sight seeing cruise around the Mediterranean :D

Jingles telling his life travel stories is a treat. Thank you!

So, tail number is "JG-GB1" - for "Jingles - Great Britain 1" is my guess (sorry if this has been talked to death in other FS videos).

Jingles I love those story videos, really interesting and relaxing

Getting lost in Venice is probably one of the best travel experiences I've ever had. Pre-smartphone navigation consisted of random markings on the corners of buildings pointing to a notable bridge. I considered it a giant, fun, confusing, beautiful puzzle :)

Never thought I'd hear somebody trying to go hungry in regards of Italian cuisine. How to pick something good off the menu? Close your eyes and put your finger on something, likely it's gonna be goood!

The Salty Overlord nailed the reason for not watching the last video, the title makes this series an instant watch.

My daughter went to Venice with her school and when her friend fell into a canal had to find a laundrette and was delighted to find a beer vending machine there. She is also a picky eater but managed to find a cafe that served chip pizza. Since the mid-2000s Venice became incredibly bunged with tourists

I visited Venice about 4 years ago. It was one of the best things i ever did. And it might surprise you, that Venice is now one of the most clean cities in Europe. There are signs everywhere in a couple dozen languages that tell you to keep the city clean and if you are caught littering (what is likely, because there is a huge amount of city security patroling around) you get a huge fine. I still wouldn't want to drink the water from the channels, but you could take a bath without dying instandly.

Isn't Venice the city that came up with the word: 'quarantine'? They put newcomers on an island for forty (quaranta in italian) days and if they weren't suffering from the plague after those forty days, then they would be allowed to into the city...?

Pizzeria: The Murphy's Pub restaurant is what you must be referring to, uncle Jingles.

Thanks for sharing Jingles! Good stories, really liking this series. We should call it The Gnome Tour

@TheMightyJingles - this was awesome, keep 'em coming!

Thanks so much for the stories & tour! I visited Venice in '64 as a child, my mother being Italian. We went there to go to Murano where "Free" Glass is blown by artists outside the classic Venetian glass studios. I remember my father ordering Carpaccio (I had spaghetti a la carbonara & my mother had (Agnello/Abbacchio con scorza di limone, prezzemolo e acciughe). We were used to off & on eating Steak Tartar, Ceviche & Sushi so Carpaccio was well within the norm. Of course there are as many versions of the dish as there are homes & restaurants. I am so glad you were the adventurous type. If you weren't I probably wouldn't be futilley attempting to have a virtual conversation with you. I've lived my life like that too, living in Alaska, Chicago, Malibu, Manhattan, Switzerland, Texas, Oregon, Santa Cruz calif. & Japan. Every place has it's local cuisine, from banal to bizarre, but many outstanding. I have the potbelly to prove it. In fact, my belly is insured at Lloyd's of London for 3 million Bahamian dollars. True story. Anyway, as related to your MSFS vids, I used to hitchhike by airplane. Before the war, hitching air-rides was not terribly unusual (they even used to send kids by airmail), but this was in the '70s and the very idea had long become extinct. As you can imagine, I spent a lot of time in a variety of aircraft from single-prop to Lear jet. It's how I learned to fly. By fly I mean not crashing. The beauty of it and the hundreds of hours of viewing the different landscapes, cities & seasons remain with me on call. I grew up essentially at the beach and sailed & dove. I've nearly died at sea twice. I have respect for it. I also was in the Navy but only for 3 months (it's quite a tale) but left with a general discharge. Just thought I'd uninvitedly relay that to ya. Love your work. Drive recklessly & prosper matey.

Jingles, this series is slowly becoming my new favorite.

When I visited Venice as a child with my parents, the Indiana Jonas films didn't exits yet. I only it from the James Bond movie "From Russia with love"

I love this series! More please, I love listening to your stories, it's almost like a podcast

you know you're flying over italy when the roofs of all of the buildings are red tile lol

jingles your not the only one, Tomato's and onions are both on my 'red' list, and the struggle is real when it comes to finding menu's with options that don't have those two items on.

i very much enjoy these videos! would love to see more of these type of videos, where you visit different cities, we get to see places we've never been and maybe will never be, and also get to learn about its history and impotance a bit. this was 15 mins very well spent.

Loving these stories with history and jingle tales. More please👍

Another great review of Jingles Travels. I do hope this becomes a weekly thing.

These videos are just perfect :) Thanks Jingles

Will always take more talking time with uncle jingles!

Love these videos! Keep making them Jingles, the others will catch on to how great they are in time

Thanks Jingles, for your amusing tales and for your service in the Royal Navy.

My father was in the United States Air Force in the 90s we were assigned to lakenheath RAF and my dad worked at Mildonhall Hall RAF we thoroughly enjoyed the ability to travel to mainland Europe Germany France Italy All the above it's always nice to hear your stories about your time in the Navy

Yeay, MORE of this. Keep em coming, evil gnome overlord. I will happily keep serving my duty in the saltmines, as long as you keep THESE videos coming... 22 years in the royal navy... there will be tons more, where this one came from...

Thanks for posting another of the story series. Really enjoying them.

Being in Venice during carnival, was spectacular. I loved it, a city like no other. What's crazy is you and I are both in the Navy in 91'- 92' gallivanting around Italy at the same time.

For anyone wondering or think the name is familiar and don't know why… Marguerite "Peggy" Guggenheim is the daughter of Benjamin Guggenheim who was lost on the Titanic when she was 13 or 14... As Jingles said, she collected a lot of art work and displayed it for the public :)

Venice is still my favourite place in the world. The food, the sights and the general vibe of the place is just awesome. Or it was when I was there in 2004.

I don't know if you've ever been here, but I'd recommend flying over Palermo, Sicily, I live there and I've flown over it a couple of times (IRL), both in small GA aircrafts and on the approach on our international airport. I have to say the model in the sim is a complete 1:1 recreation, even with unique and correct textures for each and every building, there is also a stunning amount of local structures which are in 3D in the sim! Together with all major monuments.

I also went to Venice only once in life, 2003, amazingly beautiful city, wish I could spend more time there.

I would be cool if Jingles gave us a tour of Newcastle-upon-Tyne at some point and told us about the childhood mischief of a round evil gnome.

This is 100x better than history classes, jingles teacher when!

Jingles, I visited both Rome & Naples when the ship I was stationed on (USS KIDD) visited there in 1985. As well as Gaeta, Italy. All great places to visit (at least back then). Try to get to Rome & Naples; put 'em on your "bucket list". And, as always, I thoroughly enjoy your history lessons/narrations. Keep it up, shipmate!

More of those please, absolutely love it.

Love your history lessons jingles

I love listening to tales from Jingles.

I've heard British colonialism explained thusly: The British invaded the entire world looking for seasonings and spices, then decided they didn't like any of them.

So you did not go to Harry's bar where H. Hemingway was used to drink and write, in Venice?

My father was taken to Venice by my grandparents in the 1950's. He thought it a vile place and no better than an open sewer.

Holidayed across the bay from La Spezia near Lerici (La Caleta) in the late eighties - loved it.

I love the chill vibes I get from this, and I get to add vacay destinations for me!

I wish I could just wander off and see the world. Everything is more complicated now and more expensive. I doubt Ill be going anywhere anytime soon

I played my first MS Flight Simulator in 1999 and it was stunning. and now i am just speechless. The best flight simulator out there. Thumbs up Jingles!

Must have been nice to visit bases in actual cities... Most of the bases i served in, well, they were not (more like the exact opposite). They had exactly and precisely nothing outside of the gates. Nearest services of any kind (outside of those offered in the base itself) were typically so far away removed that no one bothered to even try to get an evening leave/off.

More of these please and I'd happily listen to an hour or two's worth of Jingles adventures

There's been one, and only one, Maccy Ds in Venice proper since (if memory serves) at least the late 1990s. You definitely lucked out with the carpaccio - for something more substantial, I'd have gone for one of the loaded focaccias that can be found on almost every corner. And do you remember how much that cappuccino set you back? Because it can't have been cheap!

You are making me miss Rome so much right now. The coffee. The food. The cheap wine (seriously, their wine game is incredible). I'm even missing the scammers a little bit.

Similar story wandering around on my own in Catania, Sicily as the others were in the bar. I was hungry and stopped in a street cafe in a piazza and I had the same naïve RN Junior Rate Sailor from the North East thing going on, can't read or speak Italian but I had an advantage this menu had a one word I recognised RAVIOLI. Ordered the ravs and here was me expecting heinz ravs and what I got was an open ravioli with what could best be described as foreign stuff on it. I'm hungry and looking at this plate like its just fallen out the back end of a cow.....but I'm very hungry ah well I take a bite and well ... it was a revelation and a sensation, I've never tasted this before, so food is not just stuff to fill you up and give you energy . It can taste amazing too so THANK YOU ITALY/SICILY I now spend a fortune when I can on amazing food trying to recapture that memory or sensation.

Why do I imagine a Paulie Gaultieri like situation? Unhappy with his fancy squid ink pasta. Commendatore!

You can have carpaccio made from all kinds of food. May wife had yesterday Ananas carpaccio

Whenever my family and I travel, esp. when travelling overseas, we always try to sample the local cuisine and avoid the American fast food restaurants. The exception to this was during a recent trip to Hong Kong and Japan where we went to MacDonald's once in each country just to see how their menus differed and to try things not found at American MacDonald's. But aside from the two visits to MacDonald's, we ate nothing but local food, including a Japanese fast food place for breakfast oince.

Nice tour, thank you Jingles!

HAHA! When you started talking about sitting down ordering food you didn't knew i thought about the time i ordered Beef Carppacio without knowing what it was.... xD

I visited Venice in the early 90s and saw a lot of MaccyDs litter, so there was fast food there somewhere. I suspect it was disguised and tucked away down a side street somewhere much like their supermarkets. On the subject of Venice, John Julius Norwich wrote a fantastic 'A History of Venice' that I recommend.

Love this jingles, do an air tour of that hella fancy food place that had yacht valet parking.

Venice is perfect when you like boats to be there for the Vogalonga in early summer. Was there 3 times and it was always nice.

Sounds like Jingles needs a proper Italian vacation and see what he missed all those years ago and maybe make some films ;)

You're missing out on a whole lot by not liking tomatoes and onions... two of my favorite ingredients. Mediterranean cuisine as a whole is amazing, and everyone usually ends up falling in love with it.

This was a Fun video . We need more

Mighty tour guide Jingles: If you want beer, burgers and bimbos, Venice is not for you.

I know all about the English thing about English-only food, My brother married the daughter of a pair of English immigrants to the US (he was a soldier at the English retreat from Dunkirk, for example). No matter where they went, regardless of the quality of the non-English food at some very good restaurants (French, Russian, and so forth) that my brother had us go for parties, the ex-English couple ONLY ate English-style food "because we might not like the foreign stuff". I could not believe it, with the great food I was eating at those places. So sad...

Great video jingles quite enjoy the navy storys

Onion is the building block of most cooking Jingles. Bruh.

even if I like flight sim (going to grab it myself) having this little jingles podcast is amazing

Another fabulous nickel tour by the Gnome! You really were lucky being a Limey, as a US Groundpounder, the most exciting place I visited was Tokyo, and only for 1/2 a day travelling through. Though I did live in S. Korea for a year (actually an amazing country...my son lives and works there as a DoD contractor working on Army helos, atm). I will once again drop my 5 cents USD in the bucket on my way out.

I do this today, as i travel a lot in the US. When i am on a job site, i ask the workers at the job site for any recommendations for local eateries. Because while you can be pretty sure what you're going to get at a chain restaurant, a good local place will blow your socks off more often than not. Best liver an onions i ever ate was in a restaurant that looked (from the outside) that it should be condemned. But inside was clean and the food was amazing. The only reason i even went it, was because the parking lot was packed, so i figured the outside appearance was no deterrence to the locals. And i was right. Ate there a couple of times while i was there. Good southern cooking, which isn't fancy, but it's goood and it sticks to your ribs. And let's face it, sometimes you don't want fancy, you just want the food you grew up eating cooked well, and decent portion size. Stuffed pork chop? Yes please! BBQ ribs, cornbread, and green beans? Yes please! And can i have another sir?!? ^-^

Actually Jingles, Dr. Jones is in the Campo San Barnaba... it was a good try.

I thoroughly enjoyed this story time with JIngles. Make more!

Nice! Venice! I visited it too in Asassins Creed ;) By the way i also had same experience in Italy: go to a typical tourist trap cafe next to a famous historical spot, order random overpriced stuff of the menu, cry because it s the best thing i ve eaten in my life ;)

oooh, grampa jingles is telling tall tales agfain! *grabs popcorn*

Thanks, Jingles. You help more than you know.

Im lucky enough to have lived an hour away from Venice but to this day my favorite city to visit in Italy is Verona has its own colesseum

Yay another Storytime with Jingles!

Thank you for the great story!

Jingles your a genius, Brack got pushed! Someone on the activision-blizzard board must be a jingles fan!

Florence is also another wonderful city to visit if one is ever in northern Italy

Isn't La Spezia also the port that the U-96 was ordered to report to after crossing through the Strait of Gibraltar in Das Boot? Ofc they never made it through in the book or movie but I recall that being the order.

One of the best things in travelling is trying other country's foods.