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Venice, Italy

We had a great sleep in our tiny bunks until the door was tapped at 6am to get up for breakfast in time for docking at 7am. It reminded me a bit of boarding school getting woken up by the sister. It was a beautiful sunny day and as we stood there wondering where to next we were reminded that yesterday we had forgotten in our frozen state to download a google map of where the train station was. We asked a young Aussie couple at the port and they gave us directions for 900 meters down the road. Well a pleasant 25 minutes and probably 2kms later we got there – no worries mate, we weren’t lost it was just their perception of distance LOL.

We had prebooked our tickets on line and to give a buffer I chose the 10:30am train so we had 2 hours to wait at a not so flash station so I asked the nice ticket man if we could change to a train for 8:36 (10 minutes away) to which he kindly did – allocated seats and all. Wonderful two hours gain and more time in Venice, or so we thought.

The first leg of our train trip was to the city of Bologna which was nearly 3 hours travel. First half the train trip followed the coast which was scenic with lots of small towns and seaside resorts. The harbour was a little tidal but still tidy and lots of umbrellas on browny sand and estuaries. Not big beaches like we are used to, but for Europe it was quite spacious. When we curved inland the country side was a lot flatter and became very horticultural with loads of grapes and Kiwifruit vines, peaches, pears, cherries, vegetables and other trees. Most of the fruit trees were espaliered. Nicer houses – more European style, fewer apartments than other areas and more modern (but not like Australia or NZ modern). Generally a more affluent, clean and prosperous area and very tidy farms and orc*********ly saw two horses though, yet quite a few paddocks cut for hay or with big round hay bales.

Feeling confident when we arrived in Bologna I asked the information man if we could move forward on the train for our next leg to Venice (2hrs). He inspected my eticket and basically told me it was not valid and I needed the PDF copy of the receipt. I showed him my email on the IPAD which was the same as my print out and there was no PDF attached even tho it mentioned the attachment – he just basically said I could ask the conductor if they would let me on, but not early or buy another ticket. Great – they stuff up the email and I have to buy another ticket? I don’t think so, but when you are in another country with different laws, limited language and not a lot of understanding of just how far you can push its disempowering.

We lugged our bags to the platform which was down and up stairs and found a conductor who was a lot more pleasant. He said that he would accept our printed ticket but to be safe go and get a ticket printed from another spot – manual ticket office. OK, off down and up steps again, long wait at ticket line, and ignoramus from the info desks cousin at that window. No our email was not a valid ticket and we had to buy another one. We were really fuming as we had missed the other connection, so we stopped, took a breath or two and discussed what to do?

Stuff if, we will hop on the next early train – now 1hr earlier than our booked one and play dumb tourista if we get caught. The way we figured it, one conductor said yes, and we had proof of payment and ticket even if it was on the 2:30 train and no PDF.

As it happened we did get checked along the way, and I had to show my ipad email with no PDF attached and he was ok with it – whew, I did break a little sweat up but we weren’t doing anything fraudulent, it was their system that was faulty! By the way the cost of the ticket was only 10 euro, but hey thats a main course!

Arriving in Venice was exciting! You cross the big lagoon and enter a canal world of old buildings and charm. Our hotel is quite close to the train station and the ‘top’ or entry to Venice and we found it by luck quite quickly as street names are very hard to find. We did the usual check in and headed out for a quick explore. Our concierge was able to give us a discount on a gondola ride so we booked that for tonight as it looked as though the weather may weaken again.

Venice is a lot bigger than we thought and a real rabbits warren of streets and canals and little bridges connecting and intersecting them. Its clean and in many parts has a shabby charm of peeling paint decayed wood. Unfortunately there are the Indians and Africans at key points but more on that later. We are pretty hardened to them now and practicing different techniques for getting rid of them. There is the bulldozer technique (push through middle and shove them out the way if they block you) the should we say we will take the lot and then say no only joking, and the tourrets technique which starts with “don’t make me say it”, repeated several times with the back up of something I won’t type if they persist (havne’t had to progress to stage 2 yet) and finally the fly swot technique as I have previously mentioned in early blog. The bulldozer is the most common one and effective.

Venice feels utterly charming, magic, fun and its such a buzz to be here. It has an Amsterdam feel to it but different of course. Having only boats is so cool – instead of buses, there are boats called vaporetta. Police and ambulance use a boat – saw one with sirens etc zooming along. And there are loads of small wooden pannelled James Bond style boats – some more decorated than others – that are for private use or taxis (will get a photo later). There are also lorry boats which are like little barges which cart everything you can imagine – food, laundry, rubbish, bulldozers, little trucks with hi-abs on top.

We had a great dinner at a restaurant recommended by our concierge and then a Gondola ride which was shared with another couple. This was a bit disappointing having to share as it took the romance away as Vern wouldn’t sing to me and then the ulitmate disaster – my battery I inserted into the camera before the ride was dead and my camera would not turn on. Lucky lucky lucky we had packed Nancy (IPAD) and all photos of the ride and video were taken with her. Whew. When I got home I recharged the battery for an hour and it was fine????? Bit scary!

PS. At the hotel I realised I lost my first item on the train or train station – light long sleeved top which had been wrapped around my waist – think it went missing in that horrible Bologna station when I had to up and down stairs with the suitcase and back pack several times? Dam.

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