I touched down at Marco Polo airport in Venice after another 7 hours on the plane. Thank goodness I don’t have to catch another plane for two weeks!!
Lesson 1: there are two steps to public transport here – buy a ticket then you need to validate it! The girl at the bus stop was vehemently telling me something i didn’t understand, then repeated “stamp! stamp!” Apparently that;s what the unlabelled yellow box at the bus stop is for.
My first view of Italian countryside between the airport and Venice was perfect – a mix of shiny car yards next to old farmhouses with geraniums and grape vines covering pergolas. A perfect contrast!
Venice itself is gorgeous. I got off the bus in a mass of confused tourists, and we all pulled out our maps to see where we needed to go. All good, except there weren’t a lot of street signs! I eventually worked out where to go and was wandering over the Ponte when I saw R walking towards me. It was very romantic – I dropped my luggage, ran towards him with arms outstretched… not really, but we did stop for a big hello hug and snog in the middle of the bridge, surrounded by tourists. So very Venice!
I’m glad R had already found the hotel, as the windy backstreets were already confusing me. Why have a straight road when you can have curvy ones, and stick a bridge here and there for effect!
After dropping my stuff at the hotel and having a much needed shower (why does plane travel accellerate the normal dirt-accumulation process??) we wandered out for an explore. First thing: thousands of masks. Big masks, small masks, eye masks, whole face masks, feathered masks, papier-mache masks… you get the picture. The souvenir stands were full of them. I will have to pick up a couple of them to take home! There are shops dedicated to Carnevale, with gorgeous costumes and velvet cloaks etc. Divine!
We had our first gelati just on the Rialto Bridge. Yum! I had “dolci latte”, a mix of caramel, vanilla sprinkles with nuts, and R had dark ciocolatte. Mmmmm…
That kept us going for a while more of exploration as we wandered through Piazza San Marco (now I know what the fuss is about – gorgeous!) and tried to avoid the touts selling long-stemmed roses. But soon enough our sore feet and empty tummies told us it was time for a proper meal.
We wadered around looking at the menus posted on restaurant doors, and couldn’t see the magic words “pizza senza glutine”, so after a lot more tramping, we sat down at a place whivch helpfully had the menu in four different languages. We settled for the sardines “Venetian style” with onions, and seafood risotto. The sardine was delicious, marinated in olive oil with lovely mild onion. The risotto took a while, bu was wrth the wait. Creamy and smooth, studded with small pieces of prawn, squid and other seafood, it was hot and fresh and hit the spot.
Then we tried to walk home. We’d managed to get most of the way and then our navigation was a bit off in the dark, as we ended up on the south side of the island. Then we walked some more and eventually found a map. After wandering for an hour, we eventually made our way back to Piazzale Roma. Yay!
By this stage, A had hit town on the train, He hadn’t booked a hotel, and since it was an especially busy night for some reason, all the hotels were booked. At 10 he was talking about catching the train out to Mestre to find a hotel there, but we convenced him to crash in our room. Strangely, there was a fold-up bunk bed at the side of the room!
I crashed pretty early, completely zonked, and then woke at about 7.30 this morning to the sound of church bells and people walking along the stone street below.
Two Weeks Away 