9/15 Mon – Venice
Now remember all my friends and family – this is for my diary so I won’t be offended if you find it all too long or boring to just move along or skip it entirely. Seeing countryside, people, great architecture and enjoying good and unusual food are my prime reasons for traveling; cities are not my favorite but of course you have to see the great cities of the world.
Day 2 – We have turned day into night so a little sluggish getting started. Lovely european breakfast buffet in the hotel’s very attractive dining room. thinly sliced ham, bologna, cheeses, little dry toasts that we put cheese and jam on, croissants, rolls, several juices and american coffee. Espresso with hot water added. Off we go to examine this very unique city.
Years ago at their height Venetians numbered in the many thousands but today most live outside of Venice and only come in to work. Very, very expensive to live here. The waterfront is a wonderful collage of piazzas (ie St Marks Plaza, Doges palace etc.), the grand canal like a very busy freeway – vaporettos, chris craft type water taxis; many gondolas (although these are mostly used in the smaller canals for tourists), even cruise ships and freighters go through the end of the canal.
We then proceed to get lost on the curvy walkways that run in between the endless canals and bridges that cross over. This is where people live, only a door with a number indicating there might be a residence. All of a sudden you come across a store, or several very exclusive shops, or a piazza with all this wonderful very old architecture. These streets, more like lanes, meander all over the place. If we had the energy you could be entertained for hours on end just watching the people and drinking all these wonderful old structures in. We have one of the to be many gelato ice cream cones. Truly it is the most divine ice cream ever. We had one almost evey day we were in Italy. The gelato I’ve had in America doesn’t hold a candle.
Our train leaves for Padua at 5 o’clock which is at the other end of the Grand Canal so we thought it would be fun to take the slow Vaporetto which has the most amount of stops. Wrong!!! Here we are pulling our luggage, everyone pushing and shoving just to get on this very small ferry boat I call it; finally find a seat at the back and this boat is packed. We stopped at every little place on the grand canal all right. Then we worried about being able to get off and through this huge crush of people. It was fun even though a little stressful.
Then the train station – they are really big in Italy with many tracks and trying to find the right one was quite a feat; also getting our luggage up the 4 narrow stairs and a place to put it was another adventure, but we made it!
30 minute ride to Padua through little towns and interesting countryside. We didn’t know how to exit once we got off the train so we wound up on the wrong side of the train station pulling our luggage up many stairs, on to a grubby street, not a cab in sight and of course can’t read or speak Italian. Who is it that said most Italians speak english. Not. Finally called the hotel and they told us to go back down and go out the other side, again hauling our luggage up and down the stairs.
Hurrah, civilization and taxis. Pronto we arrive at our Majestic Toscanelli hotel exhausted but in a very lovely suite. We have no energy to go out and find a dining establishment but the man who operates the bar runs upstairs and cooks us up some wonderful pasta – we are content. We have an 11 am reservation tomorrow to see the Scrovegni chapel and Giotto’s wall paintings of the life of Christ.
Tags: Travel
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