Venice, Citte Bellisima

Venice was on the itinerary today, 330 miles to the north of Rome.  A unique city, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, a favorite destination for both Laura and Scott and a highly endangered place, there was never any doubt that we would somehow find our way to "La Serennissma".  The question was, how:  Rome is in the mid-southern part of Italy near the west coast.  Venice by contrast is in the northeast corner, and while both Laura and Scott have driven Italy before, the idea of fighting Italian traffic for six to seven hours each way, incurring expense all along the way seemed not very appealing.  Fortunately, we had heard about and decided this was the time to experiment with the Italian fast-train system.  Our initial effort to by tickets wasn't successful.  (Italy is maddeningly behind the rest of the world in access to the internet and as a result, many of its websites aren't well designed or don't work at all.), but we were able to find a travel agency at Termini, at which a Senegalese immigrant speaking perfectly passable English (along with French, Italian and German) was able to secure us tickets in about 10 minutes for around 400 Euro, commission included.  The minimal commission was well worth avoiding the aggravation!  Tickets in hand, we launched into our northern adventure around 7:30 a.m., via a bus to Piazza Venezia and a second bus to Termini.  As always, there was someone confusion around which bus to take (we are forced to take busses at the busses because the trams have stopped operating for three weeks--at the peak of tourist season--while the staff are on holiday), but we got to Termini in time to search out a croissant before board our train.  Once on board, we whisked to Venice in just under four hours, arriving just after noon.  The train itself travels at over 150 miles per hour, which is unremarkable when you are sitting down but becomes perilously evident when one tries to navigate one's way through the crowded train aisle to the cafeteria car, to buy soft drinks, water, and for Cecily, of course, fresh squeezed orange juice.  That latter, which was advertised as coming in a bottle, turned out to be in a styrofoam cup with a lid, and I thought more than once as we hurtled and were hurtled back through our train that it was going to end up on a fellow traveller!  Once in Venice, we disembarked on the Grand Canal and bought a map to negotiate our way through the maze of streets to the Piazza San Marco.  We couldn't help but notice as we arrived that the temperature dropped into the mid-70s/low-80s, a welcome relief from the burning and unrelenting heat of Rome.  We had been warned by some people that Venice in the mid summer is a smelly place, assaulting the nose with the rotting smell of canals.  Neither of us had previously experienced that, but our visits were always in fall and winter, so we were braced for the worst.  Those predictions proved unfounded, however.  The canals were fine, the streets were clean and the only downside to the city was the crush of tourists which always threaten to overwhelm this precious gem of a city.  Olivia noticed the difference from Rome immediately, and declared that while she has no intention of ever returning to Rome, Venice might well be on her list for another look.  All the girls wanted to know why we didn't choose Venice over Rome as the site for our one-month stay.   Well satisfied, we went in search of food, passing God-only-knows how many pizzas and trattorias as Laura pursued her "uncrowded, idyllic and not-priced-for-tourists" perfect eating place, a quest which she eventually acknowledged with a sigh was probably fruitless.  We ended up in the upstairs of a pizzeria, enjoying Margherita pizza and a carafe of cold wine, adjacent to a table of German tourists who proved to have no more cultural sensitivity than Americans. The pizza, however, was deemed by our little food critics, to be  the best in Italy so far  Afterward, we finished our journey to the piazza and got in line for the cathedral. At the door we found out that backpacks aren't allowed inside, so Scott had to get out of line while Laura and the girls wandered through.  The reaction from the girls was decidedly jaded.  Turns out that when you've seen one fabulous cathedral and a hundred churches, pretty soon they all start to look the same.  Next destination was the campanile next door, which we had planned to climb for the view.  We were horrified, however, to find that since the last visit, they have installed an elevator and the experience of climbing the stairs is now not a part of the standard 8 Euro trip.  Since the climb is half the fun, we stepped out of line, to some grumbling.  The decision not to climb the bell tower, however, may have been pretty smart.  It left enough time for another memory-making moment--a ride on a gondola, something neither Laura nor Scott had ever made time or had inclination to do in our previous trips.  Sailing down the canals past the house of Marco Polo and the palazzo in which Don Juan stayed and the beautiful Rialto Bridge (covered in an advertisement) felt much like journeying back hundreds of years. In addition, there were also unanticipated lessons--such as the Middle Eastern man ahead of us at the Gondola line who tried to bribe the gondolier to ignore his six-person limit per boat and take a seventh.  Even in Italian, the girls understood what was going on, and were impressed by the integrity of the gondolier, who under pressure of a potential 300 euro fine, steadfastly refused the gratuity.  They were not so impressed, however, when 15 minutes into our 30 minute ride, the gondolier suddenly announced that he would be stopping the boat for a few minutes, so he could step off to take a cigarette break--while we were left drifting in an unmanned boat in the middle of a canal!  (This might be part of what prompted Cecily to later observe that you can always tell an Italian because Italians speak Italian, smoke, have tattoos and they are never blond or blue-eyed.)   Eventually, our ride resumed and we got back to the starting point no worse for the wear.  We capped our day with a trip to the mask store, where the girls spent lots of time trying on their various faces and debating the value of 10-Euro vs. 30-Euro masks.  (This debate was settled when Dad informed them that anything over 10 would need to be paid for from their allowance.)  With masks intact, we suddenly realized that we were on the opposite side of Venice from the train station with just over an hour until our train departed.  What came next was the unpleasant part of the day--a hot, forced march at top speed through the winding, twisting streets of Venice, attempting to follow the "alla ferrovia" signs, while moving at something approximating the speed of a TrenItalia high speed train!  We arrived just in time, hot and sweaty with just enough time to grab gelato and water before jumping on the train for the ride home.  Sleeping (and a little beer for Mom and Dad) was in order to complete the trip back to Rome, where we found slow bus service and a long walk home waiting for us.  Needless to say, we tumbled into bed just after midnight, ready for a long-overdue lazy day on Wednesday.  I'll end this post with the observation that with completion of this trip, we've managed to see all of Rome, Venice, Florence, and the Pompeii/Naples area. Combined with our trip to the Turin area in 2008, that means we've covered most of the major geography of Italy, leaving us feeling rather accomplished.