Day 10

[unforth]

There's not much to say about Day 10, only to record my general initial impressions of Venice. The train trip went very smoothly. The walk from our hotel to Termini ended up being distinctly unpleasant, as I was draped with three bags and pulling a fourth, and thus felt distinctly like a pack horse (and all were decently heavy). But we made it, and made it very early, and all in all the whole trip went very smoothly. Inexplicably, the little cafe that we killed some time in had some really excellent food, and the train itself was a smooth ride with several stops through the interesting terrain of Italy. It was a four hour trip, but it would have been shorter but we stopped for the better part of a half hour in Florence, and there were, er, three others, I think (Bologne, Padua, and a stop on the mainland by Venice). There was a definite feel that a lot of the other people on the train were returning home instead of venturing out, which makes sense on a Sunday, I guess.

Almost as soon as the train left Mestre, which is the mainland stop before the city, it was clear that something was different. First I caught a glimpse, over intervening buildings, of an immense cruiseship, and I realized how close we must be to the water. This is then driven home, as suddenly the train emerges on to a causeway, and there's the Adriatic sea, with boats, sea gulls, and all manner of other things, blue water and blue sky. There's not really any glimpse of the city until suddenly you're there in the train station.

I don't really know what I expected. Okay, maybe that's not quite true. I think I expected a city that resembled Amsterdam: canals with streets lining them, cars making their way through narrow streets often barely wide enough, lots of foot traffic. My book had not been at ALL clear on what modes of transportation would be waiting for us when we exited the train station, and while I knew this might be an issue, I was prepared to assume that a regular old taxi cab would be among the options.

So we step out of the train stations. There's a small square jammed with people, a steep bridge over to our left, a canal (the canal - the Grand Canal) directly in front of us, a couple of water bus stops, some pylons sticking out of the water, and that's it. No cars. No road. Just boats. Needless to say, I don't think either of us was really prepared for that. So I took a few moments, regrouped with my book, read a bit about how the vaporetto (the water buses) worked, figured out what stop from the #1 I thought we needed, and we got on the line. Considering how immediate and total the culture shock was, we managed really well: we got of at the Rialto, I only took one slight wrong turn trying to find out hotel (caused by my failure to correctly get my brain to consider the scale of our map) and then faced the second problem: when we arrived at the place I had marked on the map, the hotel wasn't there. But it proved easily solved: mom ducked into one of the other hotels, and I had only slightly mislabeled my map, we were about 100 feet from where we needed to be, up a couple stairs, around a corner. The stairs were at the base of a bridge that led to the Piazzo of San Marco, which is the biggest tourist attraction in the city; the entire canal that led that direction was completely clogged with gondola (which, by the way, are NOT the main individual form of transportation on the canals; water taxis are. Gondola are for tourists, in the same was the horse and carriages in Central Park are - very expensive, entirely optional).

It all worked out very well. The hotel then gave us a very nice, large, detailed map. Our room is awesome - as it's actually a small apartment (about the size of my regular apartment, sigh) with a kitchen including a microwave, stove top, and dishwasher; it has a nice bathroom which has a bath tub and a washer, a little sitting room, and a cozy bedroom. It's not huge, but I can already tell that it's not going to take any time at all for it to feel like home, which puts us at 2 for 2 on booking awesome hotels, as the place we stayed in room, the Hotel Giolli Nazionale, was also very nice - we got upgraded to a triple for free because they were booked up on doubles, breakfast was unexpectedly included (not at all common in Italy) and because of when we booked the room we got internet free, too (instead of 10 euros a day...) Still, this place might be even better. I mean, there's a free (small) bottle of chianti on the table...and we're within blocks of what my book seems to believe are the best pastries in Venice - which, based on initial tastings by mom and I, may not be the best in Venice, but are undoubtedly better than any we had in Rome...(excepting of course the scones and nibbles at Babington's...)

The vaporetto trip down the Grand Canal gave us a small taste of the city. Lots of foot traffic, lots of water traffic, lots of tourists. An odd mixture of impressive dilapidation and lovely, maintained old buildings. Architecture is definitely going to be a major allure here. I feel like this part of the trip is going to be much more low-key, and there is going to be a lot of temptation to wander around aimlessly, and hop on a boat as a way of being a tourist. The list of "must sees" here is not terribly long, which will help. I think we'll probably start with the Basilica San Marco and the Palazzo Ducale tomorrow, as they are right next to each other, right near our hotel, and simply can't be avoided on any trip. But...we'll see I guess. For now? I'm shockingly tired given that it's not even 8 pm and that I slept pretty well; I'm gonna read a little, and go to bed! :)