About Gustis, Metros and Euros - IV

Day 5: Venice, Italy:
The weather in Florence was still a little gloomy, with the occasional shower dotting the day. We woke up by 6:30am and got ready to leave this town. Our train to Venezia/Venice was to depart at 10am. With our heavy bags and reluctant souls, we started trudging along the Arno towards the Santa Maria Novella station. I had identified a shorter route to the station, but still, it took us around 40 minutes to get there. On the way, there was a brief drizzle too. Nevertheless, we were before time, only to start gazing at the announcement board. As we were waiting for our train announcement, we could see an Indian family discussing some serious stuff. After a few minutes, a lady from the family dropped by and asked us if they needed to reserve seats on the train. We had our reservations and told them that it would be better to be safe and get them, rather than not get seating on the train and be sorry. When the announcement was made, it was announced that a train would depart to Bologna at the time our train was supposed to be. Again, don't go by the final destination of the train, but go by the time. We boarded the train, got our seats without any problems. No hassles with the ticket collector this time and everything went on smoothly. A clergyman was sitting in front of us and after a few minutes he left his seat and went out. For half hour he was not to be seen. My wife was getting worried and wanted to check his luggage to see if there was a bomb in there :-). Anyways, he did return and continued reading his academic papers, while we were playing rounds of hangman.

The train takes around 3 hours to reach Venice and passes through Bologna and Padova. Our reservations indicated that we need to get down at Venice Maestre station, while my research told me to catch another train or use the same train to go to Venice Santa Lucia. Remember to alight at Santa Lucia, this island is the "real" Venice. Venice's mainland station is Venice Maestre. The journey from Maestre to Santa Lucia is around 10 minutes and is very picturesque. A single road and railway line goes amidst the calm waters of the Adriatic and ends up at Venice Santa Lucia. The island of Venice is very different, narrow walkways, bridges over umpteen canals, boat buses, boat cabs, gondolas and numerous tourists fill this place. We reached around 1pm in the afternoon, to be greeted by hot weather and a blazing sun overhead. A map costs around 2.5 euro at the tourist information desk. Hmmm... pretty expensive eh? Was this a portent to what was in store? We picked up the map, but couldn't locate our hotel. We asked a security guard nearby, who told us that our hotel was very close by, perhaps 10 minutes by foot. We were pretty pleased and started coming out of the station. Now, as I mentioned earlier, Venice has lots of bridges, and to go across these there are lots of steps we need to ascend and descend. To make matters worse, the heat was unbearable and the station itself didn't provide any respite, as it had a fleet of 20-odd steps to descend. With our heavy bags we started descending the station stairs and crossed the Grand Canal (The largest canal that divides Venice into 2 halves). After numerous other canals our 10 minute by foot took us around 30 mins and we found our hotel, Hotel Arlecchino.
The hotel was very very small and our rooms were not yet ready. Apparently in Europe, the check in time is 2pm and the checkout is at 11am. After making us wait for another half hour or so, the bell boy led us up some lifts and then up some wooden stairs to go to our room. The hotel room was extremely small with really small windows, that hardly let any light inside the room. But on the brighter side, the bathroom was very long, but narrow and must be 1/3rd the size of the room itself.

The man at the concierge gave us a map and marked the guided tours we were supposed to go the next day and the gondola ride that was supposed to happen the same day. After a quick shower, we started exploring Venice by foot. The San Marco square is the heart of tourist activity in Venice and opens up to the bay. Navigating in Venice is a nightmare because of the narrow alleys, clearings amidst buildings and the many canals that criss-cross the city. The streets are unmarked as well. If you observe carefully, signs to the San Marco square are visible on buildings on main stroll routes. The beauty of San Marco square has to be experienced. A huge bell tower and a wide clearing with restaurants lining the square. Hundreds of pigeons flock the square, perhaps the feeding tourists their main attraction. The square leads to the boat docks at the waterfront. A huge poster of Roger Federer lines the passage that leads to the docks. The spectacle called San Marco square has been brought to life with a photosynth demo at http://labs.live.com/photosynth/. Try the tech preview on this page to experience it. On the way to San Marco square we observed an ice cream shop selling ice creams at 1.70 euros for 2 gustis, perhaps the cheapest ice cream we've had so far. An American student/visitor seemed to be owning the shop. Venice has many North African people selling leather bags on the streets. We tried to bargain for one of the bags. The bags seemed to be of very good quality and some of them were branded too (though I wouldn't trust the brand name). The person selling us the bag started off with a price of 110 Euro, we bluntly refused the offer and walked away. He came running behind us and asked us to quote a price. Ultimately, we bargained a big leather hand bag for around 30 Euros (Afterthought: perhaps we could've bargained for lesser 20 Euro, 10 Euro... perhaps :( ).

The walk from San Marco square along the waterfront is very serene. As you move away from the square the density of people decreases and the only thing is the sun beating down, the breeze blowing across and water splashing against the banks. At the far end of the water front is the Lido beach that has a wooded park with lots of benches, perfect for a siesta. We spent sometime there and at around 6pm we went to the Gondola starting point at Santa Maria Gigolo.
We were taken on a 45 minutes Gondola ride, a fleet of Gondolas on the waters of the Grand Canal. By now, the heat had subsided and dusk had set in, it was very cool and our ears were occupied by a singer on one of the Gondolas singing out opera-ish songs (perhaps in Italian). Boats and Gondolas form the spine of transportation in Venice. Our Gondola travelled through smaller canals and doorsteps of many apartments, hotels and residences. Just like blind street corners, blind canal corners have huge convex mirrors to avoid oncoming water vehicles. We then bid goodbye to our Gondola "driver" /oarsman and went looking for a place to fill our hungry bellies. Contrary to the omen about a very expensive Venice, we found food at Venice pretty inexpensive. A Pizza Margharita (our benchmark for food prices) was around 4.5 Euros. We were pretty pleased and had Pizza, before heading back to our hotels. The streets of Venice become really deserted after 6:30pm, I was not sure about it's safety, so we hurriedly stepped towards our hotel, just to be safe than sorry.

Day 6: Venice, Italy:
We started the day early as usual. We rushed to San Marco square, whose pier from where we were supposed to take an excursion to some popular islands like the Burano, Murano and Torcello. Accompanied by 6-8 more tourists, we set off the shores of Santa Lucia onto the "freeway" - like boat ways towards Murano. The bay at Venice seems to have specified "lanes" for boats that travel to and from the piers, just like the lanes on a road. Sticks that are pierced into the ground form the medians and the kerbs. The guide on our boat spoke fluently in English, Italian, French and German. Her accent was so Italian, that it was difficult to pick her up when she spoke English. So with ears strained towards her speech and eyes enjoying the waters around, we reached Murano island half hour later.

The boat took us directly to a glass factory. Murano is known for many glass factories that manufacture exquisite glass items like jewellery, chandeliers, decorative glass among others. A master glass artist gave us a small demonstration of how glass is blown and shaped. He made a vase and a neighing stallion in a matter of minutes. When he was doing his work, a commentator was telling us the details on how it was done. After 15 minutes we were taken to a showroom of the glass factory. I guess the designs and items there were protected under copyright laws. No one was allowed to take pictures, still or motion. The glass items were pretty pricey, given that the material to prepare Murano glass comes from France. We took a look at the beautiful works of glass art and then headed towards Burano island.

Burano is known for it's lace work and the uniqueness of this island is the brightly colored houses here. Each house is uniquely colored with outlandish shades of color. The guide told us that these were fishermen who lived on the island and it was a tradition
to paint their houses so exotically. We got to see an old woman doing lacework, the scene was straight from a fairy tale where the grand mom sits on a rocking chair, heads down doing lace work. There was lace work on sale too. We walked down the streets of Burano and bought a laced table cloth for around 20 euros. On our way back we had to hurry, as we were getting pretty late and the boat was about to depart.

10 minutes from Burano is the island of Torcello, the island where the first venetians (like Martians :)) lived.
When Torcello was thriving it had a population of nearly 10,000. But today the island has less than 15 people, as people have moved to the mainland. Torcello is a very calm, green and beautiful island with an old church, a restaurant and a couple of gift shops. We walked for a while in the island enjoying the greenery. It rained a little bit on our way back to the boat, but thanks to the pricey umbrella we bought, we didn't get wet. Some tourists fell in love with the isle and wanted to spend more time there and told the guide that they would make their own arrangements for transport back to Venice. Half past noon we were back in Venice, had a quick lunch, a couple of gustis of ice cream and headed back to our hotel. Later in the afternoon, we decided to explore Venice, north of the Grand Canal. The next day we were supposed to leave Venice for Torino (Turin) en route to Paris, but we had our train reservations from Venice Maestre. We wanted to know what time the same train would leave Santa Lucia. The information desk at the station did give us the necessary timings. We were supposed to be at the station by 7:45am the next day. From the station we walked towards Arsenale, a military establishment in Venice, perhaps an arms store. On the way, we had Fanta at a local grocery store and stopped by a Chinese-run communication place from where international calls were 20 cents a minute (cheapest we had seen so far). We called home, gave them updates about our safety and resumed our exploration of the city. The area north of the grand canal is less touristy and less expensive. At a point we were lost and a old man taking his evening walk, came all the way with us till the walls of Arsenale; really sweet people. After posing for a few photographs at the Arsenale, we decided to go back to the hotel and get a good night's sleep. The next day was supposed to be a travel day with a lot of unknowns. Also, we were to get up early if we had to catch the train to Turin. We were supposed to reach Paris after 24 hours of travel, by taking a train to Turin, a bus (we didn't know about this) to Chambery Challes in France and then another train to Paris. But things didn't turn out that way.

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