Venice - Italy
Trieste to Venice train route.
Hotel in Venice.
Having walked close to half an hour with our heavy back packs we arrived at the Hotel - Garibaldi. Photographs of the outside on google maps didn’t display great street appeal and I was beginning to wonder what I had done! So ‘in for a penny in for a pound’ we stepped foot into the establishment. We both supressed giggles as our first impression was ‘Fawlty Towers’. Older gentleman on the front desk, not a computer in sight with a large book we assumed held all the bookings and everything kept in place with paper clips. A glimpse around the corner into the dining area seconded our thoughts of “Fawlty Towers”.
To make it even more of ‘is this a set up” there was a German couple just checking out too!! So having taken copies of our I.D. Basil, I mean the older gentleman asked us to wait while he made a phone call. I assume he was trying to call Manuel to take our bags up to our room. Well Manuel did not appear so Basil grabbed my bag and indicated for us to follow him. I tried to say my bag was heavy and that I could manage but he was having none of it. A fleeting image of me have to wrestle my bag off Basil Fawlty crossed before my eyes and so I chose the path of least resistance and let him carry on. The whole time walking up the 3 flights of stairs, in my mind, I was rehearsing my CPR thinking it could come in handy! By the way, the walk up to the room consolidated the “Fawlty Towers’ impression.
Back downstairs, after dropping off our bags the gentleman who checked us in could not have been kinder or more helpful. He explained the bus system and gave us the opportunity to purchase the return bus cards from him. This saved us a lot of hassle trying to find where to buy them. He then reminded us to keep our phones and wallets in our front pockets and to be aware of pick pockets.
Just under 30 minutes and 1.50 Euro’s (each) later were in Venice. Personally I was not that interested in coming to Venice as it didn’t really appeal to me. I just wanted to be able to say that I had been. That said, I am so, so glad that we came. It was busy but not overcrowded. We spent most of our time wandering the narrow alleyways. Our direction was to head towards the centre and oldest part of Venice. We stopped occasionally to check exactly where we were before continuing on our way. We crossed many bridges and followed many a cobbled path. It was so interesting to actually see a place that relied on only foot power and waterways to get around and I recalled learning a little about Venice in school many, many moons ago. There were no bicycles either to watch out for. The colour of the canals was Jade Green, I found this quite interesting too, don’t know why…just did.
At times, looking down on the canals from one of the may bridges it looked a bit like the M1, except on water.