Erik's traveller magazine, part 3

Venice, Italy
(click on the images to view it in full size)





The train ride to Venice is about 6 hours. We stopped by a small town called Villach in between. Just in time for me to grab a small lunch. I couldn't eat too much because I was too excited to see Venice. Since we only got half a day in Venice, it makes planning very important and I had been doing that all morning.



We arrived at Venice Mestre (not the Venice central station) at 1:30pm and as we walked from the train station to the hotel, we noticed most of the shops are closed and it all seems so strange since it is Friday. When I saw the opening hours of the stores everything becomes clear to me. They all take a 2 hour break in the middle of the day. I have heard about that before, but it is just so weird when you see it. The area seems dead but yet it is in the middle of the day.



So we settled down in our hotel and are now feeling the hunger, we got a pizza from a small place next to the hotel (one of the few places that is actually open, an not to my surprise, it is owned by a Chinese family). So we stuffed ourselves and got some valuable information from the waitress and head out to the city of Venice. There are 3 ways to get there, by bus, by train or by boat (walking is out of the question). We decided to hop on the bus and tour the area while we are in it.







Our plan is to get a basic tour of Venice by hopping on the boat (which is basically a bus) through the Grand Canal in the middle and end up in the San Marco Plaza at the end of it. Unfortunately we got on the wrong direction and toured the outside of Venice instead. We still arrived at San Marco Plaza at the end, so it was good. Once we got there, it was everything I had imagined. Nice buildings, Gondola everywhere and music playing with people enjoying a nice coffee. After some picture taking we sat down on one of the cafe and enjoy the music and the environment. If anybody wants to get a feel of Europe, this is it. We sat there for half an hour hearing one song after another (sadly, I don't know any of the songs) and we were knock back to reality when the bill comes. 10 euro for the 0.2 liter coke and 15 euro for an ice coffee. Well, it was worth it.





After that we decided to walk around the city and tour the city at our own pace. We walked by many small canals and souvenier shops. Venice is very different from many cities due to its structure (built on water, boat as the main transportation). Although I have to say the smell by the canals isn't exactly the greatest. Due to the time limit we didn't get to visit some buildings on the outer islands nor the museums. By the time we noticed it was already 6pm and we decided to try out the Gondola tours. Multiple travel websites suggest us to bargain for the price, but then I realize that they have a price set already. They all open the mouth by saying 100 euro, but if I bargain, they would go down to 80 euros and not a dime less. I think that is good since that would limit the unhealthy price competitions. So at the end we hopped on a Gondola by the Rialto bridge.

pictures.....













Since the sun begins to go down we decide to visit San Marco plaza once more to check out the view at sunset and we took some more pictures. When it is almost dark, we go for dinner. We remembered a lot of restaurants by the Grand Canal at the Rialto bridge so we hopped on one of those "busses" to go there.





We wanted a seat by the canal, but as it turns out the tables by there are all for four people or more so it was a bit disappointing, but it was okay. The food was good and damn expensive (150 euro tip incl.). We met a couple who seems to be 40 to 50 years old. The husband was from Germany while the wife was from Los Angeles and because we went to the same univesity we enjoyed a nice, long conversation after the meal and since the husband is a photographer he offered to take a picture of us. We had a great time and we left when it is getting late.







So we took the "bus" back to the bus station and took the bus back to Venice Mestre. Since the bus offered no information about the stations and we had no map of the bus line, we had to ask someone when we were suppose to get off and we ended up getting off a station too early, but my experience with city navigation got us back to the hotel safely :) Tomorrow is another day and another place of our journey...