Wednesday, November 10, 2004
Beautiful Venice!
Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 03:59:53 -0800 (PST)
We are in Venice now. We left Vienna on a night train on Sunday night.
Sleeping on the train was not as bad as we thought it would be. We had the
bottom two bunks in a 6 bed cabin - we know now for next time that it only
costs a little more to get a 4 bed cabin and you have a lot more space. But
it was really ok, we (the 5 of us in the cabin) managed to fit everything
in, and we got some decent sleep and were awakened in the morning by the
lady that brought us our breakfast.
Then we got to Venice at just before 9 am feeling pretty good and we found
our hotel which turned out to be much nicer than expected - only 60euro a
night and we get our own room and our own bathroom and the location is
really convenient, not far from the train station and close to the water-bus
station. Then we went and bought a 3 day transit ticket so we can take the
water busses (vaporetti) as much as we want, and set off for a little
sightseeing. First we got an overview from the slow boat down the grand
canal then we walked around st marks square and through the streets (all
car-free of course) back to our hotel for checkin and a nap. I am loving it
so much that we added another day to our stay!
The next day I woke up with a cold :( but still we got up rather early and
headed to the Accademia musuem to beat the crowds. (On Monday there were
hardly any tourists anywhere, but on Tuesday when we went to get on the
vaporetto it was so crowded that we had to wait through three boats before
we were close enough to the front of the crowd to get basically pushed onto
the boat.) But there were no crowds at the musuem so we strolled through
taking it easy becuase I wasnt feeling all that well. Then we headed over to
the basilica. There is where we found the crowds. It was a real pain trying
to figure out where to leave our bag becuase you couldnt take it in and
apparently the bag check room was in a building across the street and around
the corner. But once we were inside it was really nice. Amazing in fact. The
entire place (which is huge) is covered in these gold and colored mosaics.
Gold is the dominating color but there are lots of others as well. The floor
is mosaic marble that
sort of rolls under your feet due to the fact that the basilica (and the
whole city in fact) is sinking. It was kind of disorienting but really cool
to look at the geometric patterns on the floor and with the sloping of the
floor they were even more disorienting. After lunch we took a boat over to
the island of murano where they make the famous venetian glass. We saw a
demonstration then walked around the island - which was refreshingly devoid
of crowds - and looked in the glass shops. We bought a few souveniers before
heading back to the mainland. That evening as it was getting much colder, we
went out for a somewhat traditional venetian dinner in a restuarant pretty
far off the beaten track. We had a first course of spaghetti with clams and
for our second course we had swordfish and tuna steak. It was really
wonderful and relaxing to be away from the tourists and we got a warm
welcome from the staff.
This morning I woke up feeling a lot better and anxious to get out and see
the flood! Apperently venice floods every now and then (once a month maybe)
when the tides are especially high. And today is one of those days. Luckily
our hotel is on some higher ground so we were able to get out without
needing the wader boots or garbage bags over our shoes that most people had.
Then they set up these raised sidewalkes in the streets so you can get
around (but not necessarily into restaurants or stores). So we walked over
to the vaporetti stop and had breakfast in the one restaurant on the street
that had set up a raised sidewalk to its front door. Then we took the
vaporetti to San Marco square becuase I wanted to see it flooded. It is
supposedly the lowest spot in the city and so gets the deepest water, but by
the time we got there - around 10am - the water had started to go down
already (high tide was at 9am) so we snapped a few photos of the still
flooded square and then went into the
Doges palace. That place was really cool, preobably the best palace we
have been in yet. When we came out the water had gone down a lot more, but
it was even colder, more windier and now raining. So the flooding doesnt
really have anything to do with the rain, but the most untolerable part is
not that there is 6-12 inches of water on the ground, but that it is
extremely cold windy and rainy outside. Now we are just trying to avoid the
cold. Apparently it is going to flood again around 9 tonight and again at
around 9am tommorrow morning becuase the tide is high every 12 hours. And I
guess the higher than normal tide has something to do with the phase of the
moon.
It is really interesting though and I am glad that we got a chance to see
the city flooded. The boats are basically moored at the sidewalks, which I
guess they always are, but they are usually moored in front of the
sidewalks, and now if not for being tied up, they would be on the sidewalk,
it is really funny. Also it is interesting to think that in any other city
if it flooded as bad as this everything would stop and they might declare a
state of emergency, but here it is just business as usual pretty much. The
stands of souveniers on the sidewalks close but everything else pretty much
goes on. Really strange.
Anyway, we leave tommorrow, and due to the cold, I am not that sad about it.
But I can't wait to come back to Venice, this is my favorite city so far! I
hope Rome is warmer!!
Meg and Seth
We are in Venice now. We left Vienna on a night train on Sunday night.
Sleeping on the train was not as bad as we thought it would be. We had the
bottom two bunks in a 6 bed cabin - we know now for next time that it only
costs a little more to get a 4 bed cabin and you have a lot more space. But
it was really ok, we (the 5 of us in the cabin) managed to fit everything
in, and we got some decent sleep and were awakened in the morning by the
lady that brought us our breakfast.
Then we got to Venice at just before 9 am feeling pretty good and we found
our hotel which turned out to be much nicer than expected - only 60euro a
night and we get our own room and our own bathroom and the location is
really convenient, not far from the train station and close to the water-bus
station. Then we went and bought a 3 day transit ticket so we can take the
water busses (vaporetti) as much as we want, and set off for a little
sightseeing. First we got an overview from the slow boat down the grand
canal then we walked around st marks square and through the streets (all
car-free of course) back to our hotel for checkin and a nap. I am loving it
so much that we added another day to our stay!
The next day I woke up with a cold :( but still we got up rather early and
headed to the Accademia musuem to beat the crowds. (On Monday there were
hardly any tourists anywhere, but on Tuesday when we went to get on the
vaporetto it was so crowded that we had to wait through three boats before
we were close enough to the front of the crowd to get basically pushed onto
the boat.) But there were no crowds at the musuem so we strolled through
taking it easy becuase I wasnt feeling all that well. Then we headed over to
the basilica. There is where we found the crowds. It was a real pain trying
to figure out where to leave our bag becuase you couldnt take it in and
apparently the bag check room was in a building across the street and around
the corner. But once we were inside it was really nice. Amazing in fact. The
entire place (which is huge) is covered in these gold and colored mosaics.
Gold is the dominating color but there are lots of others as well. The floor
is mosaic marble that
sort of rolls under your feet due to the fact that the basilica (and the
whole city in fact) is sinking. It was kind of disorienting but really cool
to look at the geometric patterns on the floor and with the sloping of the
floor they were even more disorienting. After lunch we took a boat over to
the island of murano where they make the famous venetian glass. We saw a
demonstration then walked around the island - which was refreshingly devoid
of crowds - and looked in the glass shops. We bought a few souveniers before
heading back to the mainland. That evening as it was getting much colder, we
went out for a somewhat traditional venetian dinner in a restuarant pretty
far off the beaten track. We had a first course of spaghetti with clams and
for our second course we had swordfish and tuna steak. It was really
wonderful and relaxing to be away from the tourists and we got a warm
welcome from the staff.
This morning I woke up feeling a lot better and anxious to get out and see
the flood! Apperently venice floods every now and then (once a month maybe)
when the tides are especially high. And today is one of those days. Luckily
our hotel is on some higher ground so we were able to get out without
needing the wader boots or garbage bags over our shoes that most people had.
Then they set up these raised sidewalkes in the streets so you can get
around (but not necessarily into restaurants or stores). So we walked over
to the vaporetti stop and had breakfast in the one restaurant on the street
that had set up a raised sidewalk to its front door. Then we took the
vaporetti to San Marco square becuase I wanted to see it flooded. It is
supposedly the lowest spot in the city and so gets the deepest water, but by
the time we got there - around 10am - the water had started to go down
already (high tide was at 9am) so we snapped a few photos of the still
flooded square and then went into the
Doges palace. That place was really cool, preobably the best palace we
have been in yet. When we came out the water had gone down a lot more, but
it was even colder, more windier and now raining. So the flooding doesnt
really have anything to do with the rain, but the most untolerable part is
not that there is 6-12 inches of water on the ground, but that it is
extremely cold windy and rainy outside. Now we are just trying to avoid the
cold. Apparently it is going to flood again around 9 tonight and again at
around 9am tommorrow morning becuase the tide is high every 12 hours. And I
guess the higher than normal tide has something to do with the phase of the
moon.
It is really interesting though and I am glad that we got a chance to see
the city flooded. The boats are basically moored at the sidewalks, which I
guess they always are, but they are usually moored in front of the
sidewalks, and now if not for being tied up, they would be on the sidewalk,
it is really funny. Also it is interesting to think that in any other city
if it flooded as bad as this everything would stop and they might declare a
state of emergency, but here it is just business as usual pretty much. The
stands of souveniers on the sidewalks close but everything else pretty much
goes on. Really strange.
Anyway, we leave tommorrow, and due to the cold, I am not that sad about it.
But I can't wait to come back to Venice, this is my favorite city so far! I
hope Rome is warmer!!
Meg and Seth
