Happy Halloween! - Venice, Italy
Becky| October 31, 2006 9:54 am
Happy Halloween from Venice (Venezia), Italy! I have wanted to come here as long as I can remember. We took a night train in from Vienna. I was very apprehensive considering the last night train experience I had going from Spain to Paris back in August, but it was much better, perhaps because I have gotten much better in my travels since then. Anyway, this time we woke up more refreshed. We even had a free breakfast, and a nice chat with our fellow train travelers. After that, the next thing I remember we were crossing the lagoon into the island of Venice. It was enchanting. I mean it was Venice!!! You know lots of old buildings surrounded by waterways/canals and boats everywhere. It was wonderful. I think it was even better arriving by daylight. In our travels we have slowed down quite a bit and the first day into a new town we usually use to just acclimate to the city, so after checking into our scary youth hostel, with a curfew, no doors/curtains on the showers and no toilet seats, (Ostello Venezia) on the beautiful and quiet nearby residential island of Guidecca, we set out just to leisurely wander around the town/island of Venice. As there are no “roads” anywhere, just canals, the only form of transportation is by boat. There are two forms of this though, the common water taxi, or Vaporetti, and the less common Traghetti, or Gondola. The Vaporetti are usually large and people are crammed on them like cattle. The cost about 5 Euro a ride, which lasts an unlimited amount of transfers for one hour. There are two types of gondolas though. The cheaper ones just ferry you across the canal, not down it, for like .50 Euro, but the ones that travel down the canal that all the tourists want to take are pricey. They are 75-80 Euro during the day or 95-105 Euro at night. Add a singer and an accordionist to serenade you and you need to add 35 Euro to that price. OUCH!!!
Venice is an island that is shaped like a big fish (or so says Rick Steves) and though the “mouth” of it flows the Grand Canal, kinda like a Main Street, over which there are three main bridges. It began life about 1500 years ago when the inhabitants of the area sought refuge from the surrounding barbarians and decided to try to claim the lands from the sea by building a city on pole foundations pounded into the marshy soil. In the Middle Ages it became a heavy East-West trade route, and it apparently gained religious notoriety when the bones of St. Mark (San Marco) were smuggled into Venice in 828 A.D. Over all, Venice is made up of 117 smaller islands that are laced together by a network of 400 bridges, 2,000 alleys and 150 odd canals!! All of this screams that despite your best efforts, you are going to get lost. This was the only town so far that we invested the 3.50 Euro and bought a larger scale map to use instead of the smaller less detailed ones that our guide books supplied. We referred to it frequently, but also took some comfort in the fact that even though we may have been lost, we were still on a island and eventually, it seemed, all things lead to the Piazza San Marco where alot of the tourist action was.
With all that said, what did we do today? Well, we took the Vaporetti over to San Marco Piazza and explored that area. We sat and watched the marble covering the San Marco Basilica change many various hues as the sun sat over it. We took an elevator to the top of the El Campanile (bell tower) for some amazing views with the glorious sunset. We even got the chance to be up there in the bell tower while it’s 4-5 bells rang at the hour. I could not only hear the sound with my ears, but I could FEEL it with my teeth and bones it was so loud. It played 
a long song that was so sweet, I just wish I didn’t have to have my hands over my ears so much so they wouldn’t exploded. LOL We also got a chance to feed the pigeons. Now you may think so what? Well, this is a piazza that is covered with them because you can legally feed them here. There are actually stands where you can buy pigeon feed for 1 Euro. It is cheap fun until they start doing kamikaze diving on you and try to perch on you. More fun to watch that feed if you ask me. Chris got a lot of laughs watching me though. It was a great day!
As an aside, sorry kids, but there were hardly any trick-or-treaters here. We saw a couple of kids that were dressed up but people weren’t really into it and didn’t give out much candy. Some store owners didn’t even know what they were talking about when kids went up to them saying “trick-or-treat”:(
Recent Comments