A Sunday Afternoon in Venice

Sunday June 4^th

Having really exhausted the list of activities we wanted to do in Florence, today we branched out a bit and took a day trip to Venice.  By high speed train Venice is only 2 hours away, so it is actually a doable day trip, as long as you just want to get a feel for the place. Unfortunately, because we decided only two days ago to make the trip, the trains that left early in the morning, and returned late at night were already sold out, so we ended up with trains that got into Venice at 11:30 and left at 3:30, giving us just under four hours actually in Venice.  But, we figured that four hours in Venice would still be fun, and we were right.

Before we left, I took care of a nagging issue that I’ve had for a few weeks.  If you remember, just before leaving Paris three weeks ago Katie and I went to Aquaboulevard, a big indoor water park.  It turns out that I took home an unwanted souvenir – swimmer’s ear.  I tried treating it with oral antibiotics that I brought with me on the trip and it responded at first and then worsened again.  I really needed antibiotic ear drops, so I went to an English speaking pharmacy located at the Florence train station.  Conveniently, in most of Europe pharmacists can prescribe drugs for minor ailments and with just a two minute conversation I walked out with antibiotic ear drops.  It cost me less than $12, no insurance to deal with, and easy as can be.  While I dealt with the pharmacy, I sent Paul and Katie to get our tickets validated, and I was done before they were-  easy as pie.  Nice.

Our train soon arrived, and two hours later we emerged from the Venice train station right out onto the Grand Canal.  As a side note – the amount of luggage some tourists were hauling on that train was astounding.  We saw several couples that had four suitcases and two large backpacks. Seriously – what do you need that much luggage for???? We have been in Europe for two months with ¼ the amount of luggage.

 It was a beautiful day in Venice – bright sunshine and large puffy white clouds.  Since we only had a few hours, we decided to head for the center of Venice – St. Mark’s Square.  To get there we took a water bus up the Grand Canal.  It took a bit of effort to figure out which boat to take – first we couldn’t find the right line to go to St. Marks.  The lines are marked on little floating buildings which serve as the loading areas for each boat. We walked up and down looking for line 2, and when we found it, we walked onto the loading area, and when the boat pulled up a minute later we hopped right on.  However, we had forgotten to check the direction and it headed away from St. Mark’s!  Oh Well! Luckily, the next stop was the end of the line, and the boat turned around to head back up the Grand Canal.  Because we started from the end of the line, we were able to secure primo seats up front with a great view for the ride to St. Mark’s.  All set right? 

Think again. This boat only went to Rialto, halfway to St. Mark’s.  So we had to abandon our great seats, hop off, wait again and then crowd onto the next boat to St. Mark’s.  We didn’t get primo seats this time, but we did get to stand next to the railing and had a nice view anyway.

Venice is an interesting city because it is at once beautiful and amazing to look at, and at the same time, so sad and depressing. On a pretty sunny day like today everything looks spectacular as the sun reflects off the water and the gondoliers pole their way up and down. But if you look a little closer, many of the buildings are sagging and decaying in the water, and a fair number are boarded up, probably empty and abandoned.  It is like an old lady who still looks pretty in the right light, but you know her time is coming to an end. I have not spent any time researching if Venice is actually on its last legs, with many of the buildings failing into disrepair, but it certainly seemed like it is the case.  On cloudy or overcast days I suspect that it is not so pretty, but becomes much more melancholy.

We arrived at St. Mark’s Square and admired the basilica. We didn’t wait in line to go in, as we have seen a lot of churches lately.  Instead, we headed up the Campinale (bell tower) to get a nice view of Venice.  Based on the lines for the Duomo in Florence I was worried that the line would be very long, but to our surprise, we were able to walk right in. Not only that – it had an elevator!!  It turns out that it has fallen over and been rebuilt several times, most recently with an elevator.  Just a few minutes after arriving in St. Mark’s Square we were gazing down on it from a pigeon’s eye view.  We got a nice overview of the layout of Venice – one big island and several smaller outlying islands.  It was spectacular. From the top we could see a nice green park at the tip of the main island and we decided that would make a nice walking destination.

We descended into the square and walked slowly in the direction of the park, pausing to admire the many small bridges, winding streets and small intersecting canals.  We slowly wound our way to the park and gazed out to the smaller outlying islands.  We paused for a refreshing snack (gelato of course) and then headed back along a different route to St. Mark’s.  This time instead of walking along the shore, we headed into the many twisting streets in the interior of the island.  It is really fun just to wander these streets, built for pedestrian traffic and not for cars.  These streets, really more of what we might call alleyways, are so narrow that if you stretch your arms out to the side you can touch the buildings on either side.  The passageways twist and meander, and you find something new beyond each curve. Perhaps a small restaurant tucked away or an opening providing a glimpse into a private courtyard, or you might find your way blocked as the little road dead ends into a canal.  We really enjoyed just walking and waiting to see what would appear next.

Finally our time was drawing to an end and we made our way back to St. Mark’s Square to catch our boat back to the train station.  We paused briefly in the Square to watch the many tourists feeding the flocks of pigeons and inducing them to hop into their hands and onto their heads.  It was really something to see – the flocks of pigeons swarming onto people. I saw several people with more than 5 or 6 birds sitting on them, and not a few small children who were afraid of the birds. Honestly it seemed a bit disgusting to me and I thought the kids were right to be scared.  Although I am normally fine with pigeons I draw the line at touching them. A few days ago in Florence, a pigeon flew right into my face!  Its feathers touched my lips and I had a strong urge to drink some Purell.  Looking on in St. Mark’s Square I thought of my brother and sister-in-law who both hate germs in general and pigeons in particular and wondered what they would think of this scene.

As our day in Venice drew to a close, we sat on the steps of the train station looking out over the sunlit Grand Canal, very happy that we had decided to come, if even for a few hours.

Unfortunately, our adventures for the day were not quite over.  It began to pour as we rode back to Florence and the weather evolved into a full-blown thunderstorm as we pulled into the Firenze station.  The crowds at the bus stops were huge, and for some reason, very few buses were coming.  It seemed as though every other bus that pulled into the station was out of service and headed for the depot. I understand that it was Sunday evening, but the small number of buses available seemed to be far too few. 

We waited, and waited, and waited as the rain poured down and the thunder boomed and the lightning flashed.  At least the stop was under cover!  According to the posted schedule, at least two buses on our route failed to show up. After 30 minutes of waiting, we decided to take a taxi, but it turned out the line for taxis was about 45 minutes long, so we returned to the bus stop. After a total of 45 minutes waiting the bus we needed finally showed up and we crowded on with everyone else. The combination of the dampness from the rain and the number of people onboard resulted in the entire bus taking on the feel of an extremely humid sauna. I had to keep wiping the steam off the windows to look out and see if we were approaching our stop. After an interminable wait, we finally arrived and hopped off, happy to breathe in the fresh air.  We then rushed in the rain to the villa, happy to finally arrive, and ready to prepare our ravioli dinner, our memories of warm, sunny Venice propelling us forward.