April 8/08 - Venice, Venezia. Arrived at the Santa Lucia station at 7 pm after about 2 hours ride on the Eurostar from Florence. It was dark, gloomy, cold and rainy. Leaving the train station for Hotel Ai Tolentini at Santa Croce directly across the Canal Grande, we discovered that the bridge Ponte degli Scalzi proved to be a challenge - the bridge looks like a hill of staircase, a daunting task to pull our luggage across. Next time if we come again, we would book a hotel on the same side as the train station.
The hotel was difficult to find eventhough it was just a short distance because Venice is like a maze. When we made it to the hotel which looked more like an inn, we found the innkeeper rude. Anyway, we told ourselves that we are here to see Venice, not to spend time in the hotel room. Looking for food was difficult, most places were closed. Fortunately we found "Brek", a self service cafeteria near the train station.
April 9/08 - Next morning, we woke up fresh and excited to explore this decaying heritage site. Walked over to the Vaporetto stop outside Santa Lucia and bought 12 hr ticket for Euro 14.00. Then we made our way on foot to the Rialto Bridge and explored the market first. This is a very colourful market - vegetables, fruits, seafood, etc. We loved the strawberries (as big as your fist) and tomatoes. Then we took the Vaporetto (water bus) from Rialto to San Marco. The buildings facing the Grand Canal are magnificent. This canal is like a busy street. Vehicles are not allowed in Venice, so water is the only means of transport.
It was unfortunate for us that some of the famous sights were in scaffolding - Santa Maria della Salute, the Casino and part of the St Mark's Basilica. We deposited our bags at the left luggage and toured the basilica (free entrance)- it is magnificent - the mosaics and architecture. After that, we chased pigeons on the square (lots of pigeons and tourists - very noisy, one of us got bombed by a pigeon!!), then souvenir hunting. We bought brooches and fridge magnets of the Carnavale masks. Some of us wanted to buy the glass pendants so we decided to go to Murano (check out the Murano video).
Later in the evening, we went back to the Piazza San Marco to see the square at night. It was devoid of tourist and the buildings looked very different lit up, no wonder Napoleon called it the finest drawing room in Europe. We were tempted to dance in the square but it was drizzling.
April 10/08 - we woke up early for the 7.45 train to Milan.
No comments:
Post a Comment