Today morning, we were scheduled to go to Venice by train. Our tickets showed that the departure time was 9:30am, so we woke up early, showered and had breakfast. We reached the station around 9:10am. The train had already arrived (from Rome) and was waiting, so we hurried to our coach and settled into our seats. No exciting adventures with porters this time (like we did in Rome)! On this train, we had been assigned pairs of seats that faced each other with a table between us, so it was really nice because the four of us could face each other and converse easily. The train lurched out of the platform on time and quickly gathered speed towards Venice. The first stop was Bologna which was about 100km which it covers in about 40 min. This is the longest stretch because stops are more frequent after that which don’t allow him to get up to top speed. On the stretch from Florence to Bologna, the train touched a speed of 248 km/h for a few minutes, which was exhilarating. Unfortunately, I noticed the speed being displayed on the TV screen several minutes later and by the time, I could take out my camera and take a picture of the TV screen, the speed was not being displayed any more and a few minutes later, he slowed down to about 200 km/h. After that, he never got to that speed again for the rest of the journey.
After stops at Ferrara, Padova and Venezia Mestre, we finally arrived at the main station, Venezia Santa Lucia. From Venezia Mestre (which is on the mainland) to Venezia S L (which is on the island of Venice), the train actually goes over a long bridge (about 3.5 km), giving us a scenic view of the lagoon, the boats and the houses.
We had purchased 36-hour passes from Venezia Unica that gave us unlimited access to the water taxi, the rest room facilities and a fixed number of museums / cathedrals. As soon as we got off the train, I asked for the way to the place where I could pick up the passes and was told that it was just outside the station. There was a small line and I was able to get my passes and all the information necessary to reach our hotel (or so I thought!) quite quickly. We were supposed to get off at the Rialto “station” and find our way to the hotel from there. Rialto was the first stop and was just about a 10 minute ride from the railway station, so we were quite happy about that. We had heard and read a lot about Venice, but it’s a different experience to actually see it up close. It was a short but fascinating and captivating ride to the Rialto stop and we took a lot of photos. As soon as we got off the boat at Rialto, I headed to a nearby store to pick up a map. But, the map wasn’t very clear about where our hotel was exactly. I pulled out the hotel booking confirmation and looked at the address. I thought of calling the hotel for clearer directions but there wasn’t a single pay phone that accepted coins. All the phones needed some kind of pre-paid card or something. Anyway, we took a closer look at the map and saw a square that was very close to where our hotel was supposed to be. We charted out a rough path to the square and headed out lugging our suitcases behind us. We were surprised by how narrow the lanes / streets were and it became even more difficult with the crowds that were constantly streaming past us in both directions. After about 5-10 minutes of walking, we realized that we were lost. Sneha had read somewhere that one of the “must do” activities in Venice was to “get lost”. Well, we’d achieved that objective very quickly!
Anyway, we took another look at the map and just couldn’t figure out where we were or how we were supposed to reach our hotel. The streets in Venice are not always as clearly labeled as in Rome and Florence and we could not easily correlate the road signs that we were seeing with the streets that were shown in the map. We kept walking from one narrow lane to another hoping to find one lane that was actually marked on our map, so we would know how to reach the hotel. Finally, after about 15 more minutes of walking around and looking at the map, we reached our hotel in Calle Goldoni (Hotel Bonvechiatti). From the outside, it seemed like a decent hotel, so we quickly went up to the reception and checked in. No problems there but we were disappointed that there was no free WiFi. It was either 5 Euros for 3 hours or 10 Euros for 10 hours, so we signed up for the 3 hour option and decided to be careful to sign off as soon as we were done using the Internet. We were free for the rest of the day to rest or do some sightseeing. We decided to head out to lunch and do some sightseeing. We asked for directions to St. Mark’s square. That’s when it hit us that, in Venice, you don’t get directions. People will only point out where a certain place is on a map. It’s up to you to figure out directions because the lanes are so small and the network of lanes is so complex that it is almost impossible for anyone to trace out an efficient route and also nearly impossible for a person to actually follow that route.
Still, our hotel was very near to St. Mark’s square and with a little help from the person at the front desk, we were able to find our way there quite easily. The whole area was extremely crowded. We knew that it was a very famous / popular square but the sight that met us actually reminded us more of India than anything else. We headed across the square to find a restaurant for lunch and found a place called ‘Bar Americano’. We bought ourselves some pizza slices and went back to find a place to sit around the square and eat. One gelato later, we were feeling good enough to visit Doge’s Palace or Palazze Ducale. Our Venezia Unica passes allowed us free entry into Doge’s Palace, so that was good. We walked in and saw a courtyard in front of us along with a map explaining some of the things that we could see in front of us. Next, we decided to go up the ‘Golden Staircase’ to the upper floors and check out the museum. What followed was one of the best museum experiences of my life. The rooms in the museum are lavishly decorated and there’s always a sheet with a detailed description of the room (the purpose of the room, for example) at the entrance. Some of the rooms are incredibly huge with paintings more than 50’ long like the ‘Il Paradiso’ which is the longest canvas painting in the world. Then, we have the prison area which is detached from Doge’s palace but connected by the Bridge of Sighs. We walked on the Bridge of Sighs to view the prisons. It took us almost 2 hours to finish this fascinating tour but it was well worth it.
We came back to St. Mark’s Square and were surprised to see parts of the center under an inch of water. I didn’t probe too much into it but I suspect that it is caused by high tide. Next, we decided to stand in a long line to enter the St. Mark’s Basilica. The line moves fast and we did not have to wait too long to get in. As usual, the size and beauty of the inside of the basilica was very impressive. Sahana and Sneha were dressed improperly by the church’s standards, so they were given shawls to wear around their shoulders (1 euro each!). After finishing a quick tour of the basilica, we decided to stand in line to go up the St. Mark’s Campanile, the bell tower that’s just in front of St. Mark’s Basilica. Here again, the line was not too long but it moved in spurts as batches of people entered elevators to go up.
This sight was not covered by our Venezia Unica pass, so we had to pay 8 euros per person to go up. But, we felt it was worth it because the views of Venice from the top were very nice, especially in the early evening.
We still had enough energy and time to do a more sightseeing so we decided to visit the Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari. We had to take a water taxi to reach this place followed by a short walk. Again, the basilica did not disappoint us with its magnificent interiors. On our return trip, we decided to get off at Rialto and see the Ponte Rialto up close.
No comments:
Post a Comment