The Musings of a Fernicle: Venezia

After visiting the JRC and Lago Maggiore, I took a commission bus for commuters back to Milan on Friday afternoon. It was lovely to drive through the countryside and have a small but impressive bus tour of Milan before I arrived at central station around 6pm. A short stroll to a hotel room and I must admit, I totally collapsed. It was the first time, day or night, that I did not have an activity arranged for me for over a week (even though it was arranged that I would be on a train at 8am the next morning). When I found an english movie on TV, I ordered room service and lay back to do absolutely nothing. I was constantly nagged by guilt for not going out and exploring Milan, but I was also exhausted enough to ignore it. The justification was that if I move to the area next year, I will have plenty of opportunities to explore Milan. So sorry, no pics from Milan...yet!

The train I was on the next morning though was to Venice, and I do have a few pics from there!

J and I had said we would meet at the Vaparetto (Water Bus) stop outside the railway station. I got there no problem. J got there with lots of problems. His problems began with a strike at Bergen airport, which meant that to even start the journey he had to take a 9 hour overnight busride to Oslo. When he got to Oslo they told him the flight was closed. When we finally got to Venice, the airport bus did not show up. When one finally did arrive, he got off at the wrong stop. When he took another train and arrived at the main stop, I could not see him. Poor guy. Thank god for mobile phones. It hurts me to say that. When we finally found each other, we both spun out at the beauty of Venice.

In a way it was exactly as I imagined it would be. My imagination did of course include it being packed with tourists and having the unfortunate accompanying cheesy side! The real delight for me though was that it was not all like that. In fact, it was incredibly easy to escape the crowds and get a sense of Venice as you think it should be, as it must once have been, as parts of it still are. Just a couple of streets off the main drag and away from the 'must see' sights, you just become lost in tiny, quiet, gorgeous, little canalways with window boxes full of flowers, hidden court yards and runabout boats tied to steps down into the water. I think our experience was greatly helped by the fabulous place in which we stayed. It was a guesthouse, so a private house, just a few narrow winding streets and bridges from the action, but in an area that felt completely quiet and local. The owner served us breakfast in their large garden courtyard and told us wonderful places to eat that were also frequented my locals, and directed us to some of the special sites that were not on everybody's radar. The best thing about our accommodation though was undoubtedly the view from the room.
Here is how it looked straight ahead through our swinging shuttered windows...

To the left...

And to the right...

For me it was classic Venice. I just loved seeing and hearing the whistling gondoliers paddle under the window and when I woke up at night I loved to sit up and see the footpaths and canals all glowing under streetlamps. It was really very very beautiful. Even though it rained, and I mean completely poured, torrentially rained, for a lot of the time we were there, that is not what I remember. J and I killed ourselves laughing at how crazy it was when thousands of tourists, all with umbrellas, were inching their way through the couple of popular narrow streets and at how hilarious it was that the covered footpaths around St Marks square were packed like a rock concert moshpit while the enormous square lay empty and under about a foot of water. The rain did not dampen our mood or our enjoyment of this wonderful city though. In fact, J enjoyed it so much he shared the joy by dolling out cigarettes to the bums. Awwww... the kindness that kills slowly...