We awoke bright and early to have breakfast in the hotel but were sorely disappointed when we looked out the window and it was pouring rain, I mean, cats and dogs. They sky was a dark mass of ugly and neither of us were looking forward to venturing out into the wetness, but after awhile we decided to anyway. We knew we had to go to the train station to ask about possibilities for tomorrow with the strike and there were still a couple of souvenirs I wanted to pick up from Venice. So, we dressed our best for the rain (I put plastic bags over my socks and into my shoes) and headed out. It didn't begin well when a car drove through a puddle and soaked Jeff's bottom half of his pants and shoes, mine too.
Once we got to Venice we ventured out to find internet as the internet at the hotel wasn't working that morning (go figure, right? We were even willing to cough up the five euro for the hour). We got to see a different part of the city and found a place in a restaurant, but after looking at the prices and being really neither hungry no thirsty, we left.
We souvenir shopped in the pouring rain, had a couple of small canolis, and eventually passed another 'free wifi' place at a Hell's Kitchen wine bar. We stopped for a glass of wine and used the internet as quickly as we could. It's surprising how much we depend on it; we wanted to know the weather at our next stop, to blog, to check emails, to get directions to our next place, etc. and at five euro for half an hour at an internet cafe we were better off to each get a glass of wine and use the internet for a total of €7.50.
We found some lunch at a cafe away from the main square and each had something delicious and cheap :) Jeff had a big panini sandwich and I had a spinach and cheese pastry thing.
Jeff wanted to get another half litre of wine from the guy we went to last night but we had a couple of hours to kill before he opened so we went looking for some sights to see and with the length of lines and rain we just weren't that interested in waiting for some of them. We went looking for a church but upon finding it and seeing that we had to pay, we decided we had seen enough churches (and this one didn't inspire us to explore it). We also found the old ghetto (where the term originated from), the area where Jewish people were locked in at night by Christians many centuries ago. It looked quite different than the rest of Venice with tall buildings. It was interesting to see, not to mention the Rabis walking around and young guys with yamacas (sp?).
We weren't planning on spending the whole day again in Venice but six hours later we had. We went to find the wine guy but he wasn't there... Jeff then said, "We need to learn the days of the week". I think he's right.
The last thing we did was pick up a chocolate thing (fudge? I still haven't had any) that cost six euro because I had heard the woman wrong when she gave me the price... I thought she said, one euro per 100g but it was four euro for 100g. Oops. Hope it's good because it wasn't cheap and took a chunk out of our dinner budget!
On our way back to the station (after getting lost, again) we admired the canals and the beat-up yet pretty and full of character place that Venice is. We really enjoyed not worrying about getting run over by a car or bike because the roads were all water!
I would recommend Venice to anyone who visits Italy, even if you don't see inside one of the many historical sights!
We have a 6:43am train to catch tomorrow and then one at 7:10am to take us to Milan before the train strike begins. It looks like we're going to be spending the day in Italy's fashion and design capitol (and I so need to do laundry).
Hopefully we make it to Cinque Terre without being super late tonight.
Amanda
No comments:
Post a Comment