Burn the train pants
Trip Start
Jun 22, 2009
1
12
13
Trip End
Jul 20, 2009
Where I stayed
Locande Posta Vecchia
Venice, Veneto, Italy
Monday, July 13, 2009
Anyone who has been to Venice would know this is pretty easy to avoid. Don’t go on the steps that lead to the water, they have algae on them and they’re slippery. So we left the train station and took a vaporetto, a waterbus, to the Rialto Bridge stop. They say Venice is the most expensive city in Italy, and they weren’t kidding. It cost us 6.50 euros apiece for the one-way trip. Once we got off the vaporetto we mistakenly crossed the canal (mistakenly because we didn’t need to, even though the directions told us to. Go figure) and after getting lost twice we finally made it to the hostel.
Since our train got in to Venice at like 7 a.m., it was still very early when we got to the hostel and we had to wait until 2 p.m. to check in. While Meri was cleaning her body in the upstairs bathroom I headed outside to check out the scenery. Through an alley and beside a restaurant was a charming little opening out to the canal. I went to look, because I had nothing else to do for 5 hours. I thought my arms were long enough that I could touch both sides of the opening, but they weren’t. I slipped and fell in up to my knees. Luckily I caught myself in the steps and managed to get out pretty quickly, but I was disgusting. Canal water is not clean. At least I didn’t lose a shoe. I was wearing my train pants, which everyone hates because they’re these awful black linen things but they’re so comfortable and don’t make me hot so I still wear them. Alastair and Katie saw me fall in, and tried to convince me to throw my pants away, but instead I just put them in a bag to wash later. We got our luggage put away and went to explore the city.
We found a nice grocery store with great fresh bread and cheap drinks so we got some stuff for later and went to find some pizza for lunch. We found amazing pizza (prosciutto and fungi) for only 2.50 euros and chilled out for awhile. It was incredibly hot. Then we killed some more time at a cute little market, got lost again, got ice cream and finally checked in to our hostel. Our room was on the top top top floor of another building and it took us forever to walk up all the steps with all of our baggage but we made it. The room was nice, just six beds with exposed rafters and big open windows. We immediately crashed and took a little nap. That night we got up, showered and went to get food and see Venice by night. We ate the same pizza (we fall into routines) and then went to explore. I got sangria at a little stand and, though expensive, it was delicious. Also potent. We went back to the hostel, played spades and went to sleep. The next day we got up and checked out of the hostel and explored the city some more. We went to the piazza with San Marco’s Basilica in it, which was amazing, and then bought some pretty things at the market. We went back to the grocery store and got some foodstuffs for the train to Rome. I also got an adorable monogrammed apron as my Venice souvenir. Eventually we had to leave Venice to catch our train to Rome. I wish we had had more time to see everything, but such is the nature of a whirlwind trip. I’m sure I’ll go back there in the relatively near future. I enjoy being able to speak Italian and I wish I could do it more often.
The train to Rome wasn’t terrible; it was air-conditioned and we had plugs to charge my phone and cameras. We played some more spades and the time passed relatively quickly, even though the train was delayed. Then we finally got to Rome, one of my favorite cities ever! More updates to come.
