Venice, and getting there

After one of those "Laugh later" days, I finally made it to Venice on Saturday. (I did have a chuckle or two during the day, I must admit). The 3 hour train trip turned into two totaling about 7 hours. Started out with the train leaving Venice 40 minutes late. I finally boarded, and was just making friends with 3 young men on a church mission from the states, when they said "Get off this train, and get on that one" or words to that effect. Ours was broken, it seems.

So we boarded the train for Milan, and were assured it would get us to Venice. But we had to battle for seats with the regular Milan passengers. It was a bit crowded, and seat reservations meant nothing. We finally got under way. Somewhere after Bologna, I asked the conductor what time we'd arrive in Venice. By now, I'm sure you know what her answer was. "This train goes to Milan, not Venice". Turns out we should have changed trains in Bologna.

Not to worry, just catch the 15:05 or 16:05 train to Venice when we arrive in Milan. "When do we arrive in Milan?" "At 15:15." Sort of rules out the 15:05 train, doesn't it? Upon arrival, we find that the 15:05 is 1 hour late. Who knows about the 16:05? So the 15:05 finally makes the board, and leaves at --- 16:05. Mad rush to board. All the 15:05 passengers, the 16:05 passengers, and we displaced persons. Forget about 1st class seating, much less a seat reservation. Just find a place to park.

Somewhere back in the last several paragraphs, I lost the church men. But I picked up a couple from Hong Kong. I thought they were from the states, their English was so good. Then as we approached Milan, a young lady asked me if I spoke English. "Unfortunately, yes, only English." She also missed the announcement, if there was one, to change trains in Bologna. We asked her to join us, but she took off. She had planned on a simple day trip from Florence to Venice and back. Surprise!!

Finally, Venice, 19:00 or so. Getting off the train, I found 3 more displaced persons from California. Should learn the local language, I guess. No hotel reservation. Arriving at 13:30, I'd have plenty of time to find a hotel, right? So, fortunately, there is a hotel booking office in the train station, and they found me a place right away. As they were making the call, who shows up but the day-tripper. They were in the process of trying to find her a room when I left. Maybe I got the last one, or maybe her standards were higher than mine, who knows?

Check into the hotel, and tell him I'd be there 3 or 4 nites. Not so. They are closing in the morning. But they'll help me find a room. Turns out, they did, and a fairly nice one at that. In fact, it was one of the hotels I'd planned on checking out. So all's well that ends well.

Anyway, Venice is really nice. It's everything I expected it to be, and a lot more. Not a single car. No place for them. Plenty of canals. More than I expected, even with all I'd heard and read. Narrow streets, wrong turns are a real pleasure, unless your are pressed for time, which I'm not. The water buses (I guess that's what they are called) run on pretty regular schedule, and quite frequently. Only problem I ran into was when I wanted to take it to the end of the line, and found out that at high tide, the end of the line moves well into the city. So I went one stop and had to get off. No big deal, get the next one going the other way.

I did get to Piazza San Marcos and had a fine time wandering around there. I'd purchased a "Venice Card", which grants me free boat access, and free admission into a number of museums, so I went into the Doge's Palace, the original seat of government, as well as the Doge's residence. It was quite a place. Huge halls, the largest over 50 meters by 20+ meters. All were filled with huge paintings dating as far back as the 15th or thereabouts century. And when I say huge, I mean huge. One hall, about 40 meters long, had three paintings on the long walls, and there was almost no space between them. Big.

I closed the evening with a Vivaldi concert. He's probably my favorite classical composer. Not that I can identify any of his works by name. I'd probably have difficulty even picking him out on a CD with a variety of composers. But I do enjoy him when I can identify him.

And when I left the concert, sure enough, the rain had caught up with me. Fortunately, my pullover cap was waterproof enough to get me back to the hotel without soaking my now getting a bit long crew cut. Forgot to mention that the area around Milan had a 3 to 4 inch coating of snow when I passed through.

Time for a side note. One really nice thing about Italy is the signs I see around quite frequently. "Vietate Fumare". Even here in the Internet Cafe. "No Smoking". Yippee!!

Can't think of anything more to say for now, although as soon as I hit Send, I will. Cloudy grey today, so I may use up some of my free museum admissions. Or ride the water buses around, who knows? Anyway, that's it for now.