Paradiso Venezia

Our trip to Venice started off uneventfully but wasn't going to end that way. Little did we know that when we started our day with the nicely filling breakfast at the Splendido. Finished with our breakfast, we walked over to the train station and made our way to the ticket counter to buy tickets for Florence for the day 3 of our trip. Our plan for day 2 was to take the 8am train out to Venice and get back to Milan on the 7:45pm train which reached Milan at about 11pm. We had about 20 minutes to board our trains, got to the ticket counter to our favorite ticket counter lady. The day before, we had established some great hand signals to ease communication since she spoke only Italian :-) She greeted us with a nice big smile and after a few hand signals (the nice ones), we walked having bought tickets for Florence for day 3.

We ran to the train and got into the first available seats that we liked since we weren't able to read what coach or seat numbers we were supposed to be at. After about 20 minutes of watching people pass by, we were evicted from our seats, told which ones we were supposed to be on and we made those seats our home for the next 3 hours. Along the way, we were joined by a group of older Irish women travelling around northern Italy for a week. We exchanged travel stories, their dated back since the 1960s. Made for a very interesting train journey into Venice.

It was yet another fantastic day. A warm 28C and sunny.

Getting out of the station in Venice, you are greeted by the glorious Grand Canal. we bought the 12 hour pass, really expensive at nearly 14 euros each. By the way, this was the only tourist information center that didn't have a free map and were selling a basic map for 2 euros.

Standing at the steps of the station, we were thinking how Venice really does look different. Its really amazing to visit a city that was built on marshy lands. Did you know that the city of Venice stretches across 118 small islands, has about 150 canals and 400 odd bridges. We were fortunate enough to visit 3 or 4 of the islands and some countless bridges and canals on this trip.

You have to take the ferry into the city or you can walk. Since we had the pass, we took the main vaporetti (water bus) to the Piazza San Marco and passed some along amazing sights along the water: Beautiful old buildings, Gondolas, other water buses, water taxis running crisis crossing the canals etc.
Piazza San Marco was bustling with tourists. Actually more like splitting at its seams. Any more people and there would have been some falling into the canals. The Piazza is the only on in Venice. All the rest of them are called campi. This is the heart of Venice and has been around since the 9th century. It is lined with state buildings and St Mark Bassilica. We started walking into the city. Small streets lined with restaurants and shops and thousands of people pouring out of every one of the narrow streets. I didn't think the islands could host as many people as it does.

Although there is a map, its not of much use. The really tiny streets aren't even on the map. The only way to really find Venice is to get lost in Venice and we did exactly that. Walked on through streets that had no names, over bridges and by the canals, in and out the various campi. We grabbed food as we walked from one of the many local shops and stopped by a fresh juice store. The guy running the store had been to India 6 times: everywhere from Dharamshala to Gokarna to Kerala. We had a nice long conversation with the dude and fantastic smoothies. Finally he showed us on a map where we were and then found our way back to the Ponte di Rialto (Rialto bridge).

Rialto bridge is the oldest of the four bridges over the Grand Canal and is the beginning of the Rialto Market. Its a bustling part of Venice and definitely an important stop over. Important tip to remember is that the prices in the street shops in Rialto are a decent bit cheaper than most other places in Venice. After a little bit of shopping to buy an Asterix & Obelix made in Murano glass, and a handbag for Anusha, we got back on the ferry to visit some of the other islands. We decided to take the waterbus to Lido island and got some really nice pictures along the way.

History lesson: Murano is a small island just off the main venice island. Earlier all the glass factories used to be on the Venice island and since most of the houses were made of wood, the then rules of venice decided it wasn't safe to have the factories on the same island as the city. So he setup this Murano Island and moved all the glass factories there. However, the factories are not the best place to buy Murano glass. People say its about 2-300% more expensive on the island. Go figure.

We had a bit of something to eat in Lido by the water and then set out on the next bit of our journey. The agenda was to take a road-bus to just go around Lido and were we in for a surprise. The bus ran the length of the island and then got on to a ferry and ended up driving all the way across another island to a small village of Pallistrina. A good chunk of Lido and Pallistrina is all beaches. I am sure it would have been completely packed, had it been a weekend. Of course Anusha must have been a fish in her previous life. The moment she sees water, she hits a level of joy that is seldom seen. We were at a beach and Anusha wanted in. We spent about an hour just walking along the beach. Well in all the excitement of the islands and the beach, we forgot to keep an eye on the time. We were pretty far away from the station in Venice and had to catch the 7:45pm train.

Then the panic began. We had to wait for 20 minutes at the stop to get the next bus that went over the ferry and then took the ferry from Lido back to Venice only to miss our train by 10 minutes. When we went to the ticket counter to get the next train, we found out that the 7:45pm was the last direct train to Milan. We thought of just staying over in venice for the night, but then we had the train to Florence the next morning. We simply had to get back that night.

After about 15 minutes of contemplating and discussions with the Railway assistance folks, we finally booked ourselves on the 11:30pm train which got to Bologna a2 2:30am and then take a connecting train from Bologna to Milan at 4:30am which would end up in Milan at 7:30am. We bought the new ticket and also pushed our train for the next morning back by a couple of hours to 10am.

Things turned for the better after this though. We met two of the nicest people in Venice. One was working the front desk of a hotel by the station. He not only showed us our way to the only Indian restaurant in Venice, but also called them to make sure they were open and made a reservation for us. He talked to us about Venice, its history etc. A really nice conversation.

We made our way to the Indian Restaurant, where we were greeted by this guy from Delhi who was running this restaurant for an Italian lady. The food was great and also he explained to us how Venice really works. About the fact that everything has to come from outside of Venice since there is nothing really in Venice. How the cost structure affects the people who actually live there and how there is a Venice for residents and a Venice for Tourists. Just an example is that the ferry ride that cost us nearly 7 euro would cost a resident 1 Euro.

After the meal and some walking around the streets, we made our way back to the station to start our night journey back to Milan. The night trains in Italy are very much like the Trains in India. The coaches can be compared to the first class AC coaches on a Rajdhani just that the seating structure within the cabin is a bit different. Instead of 4 berths, the cabin has 6 seats , 3 on either side, that would recline and join in the middle to form sleepers. Here we met our third nice guy for the night and we spent the first hour talking about the economic differences in the rich North Italy vs the poorer South Italy. The two hour layover spent in the waiting room in Bologna was painful and the follow on train journey on a very packed train with no reserved seats, even more so. But we managed to find two seats to sit and snoozed lightly while sitting.

We finally made it to Milan at about 8am. Lucklily our hotel was just around the corner from the station. We checked back into our room, quickly showered and had breakfast and got ready for our next train ride, our journey to Florence and Pisa.