Travel Diary

November 7th, 2000 2:21 (PST) 11:21 (GMT+1)

It's now very late, yes our train was the right one and we arrived in Venice, but what a nightmare it was when we arrived. What happened was this...

The train ride was pleasant and I got a lot of writing done. We even took a trip to the dining car to have a snack. The rail cars are very nice. We arrived in Venice around 10:40pm. The weather was awful! Rain was coming down hard. At this point, we decided to give a taxi the next opportunity to carry us around. It was about a 30-minute wait just to get one! And the taxi line had only about 12 people in it. I guess there aren't many taxis in a town like Venice. The taxi couldn't take us to the street that our hotel was on since it was on an island, but he took us near the island. We were then supposed to take a water taxi to the place. We got our tickets for the water taxi and then went to the boarding dock. ACK!!! The whole approach area of the boarding station was flooded. There were planks to get people over to the dock. We were getting quite wet. The boat map on the dock was hard to read and comprehend. And it got more difficult to read when the power went out. Then a boat arrived with people saying that Venice was flooded. Okay, that was it for us. We turned back. Of course we had to take a taxi back to the train station. It was pretty far away too. Another $20 wasted. Now we just needed a place to stay. Our first stop was the Plaza Hotel. It was sort of nice, but you could tell that it wasn't really THAT nice. They just had red carpet affixed to the walls. The price was 295,000 Lire!! Ugh! No way am I paying $145 for the night. We went to the Best Western next door. Their price wasn't bad, but they had just sold their last room for the night...to the guy in front of us.

Well, I let Misty rest in the Best Western lobby and I went out to find us a room. Another hotel was full. I traveled farther down the street and then started running into hookers. So I did a U-turn and went another direction. I then found a hotel called "Hotel Paris." Although Misty had already been to Paris, I thought this might be a little different. The desk clerk didn't speak English, so it was a bit difficult explaining things, but after a bit, I got it worked out. I then got Misty and we now had a place to stay.

This place was inexpensive, only $150,000 Lire ($70). It had a shower, TV, blow dryer, and decent towels. We also got a continental breakfast the next morning. It was great. After breakfast, we checked out and went to the train station. Our plan was to forget Venice and just see Florence, but we checked on the train to see what the deal was. It turned out that Venice was only one more stop down the line! We just got off the train too early.

We decided to give Venice one more try. We boarded a train and chugged on over to Venice. I guess we were at outer Venice before.

Once we got out of the train station, we saw the neat city. The buildings looked quite old and sat right on the water. It took some time to figure out the boat system. Soon we were on our way. Eventually we got to our area, but could not find our hotel. Misty finally had a hotel clerk from another hotel call our hotel. It turns out that our hotel was called San Lucian and not Camelot. I had wondered why an English name had been used for an Italian hotel. We also had wondered why when we asked other hotels about our hotel no one had ever heard of Camelot before. Let's take a moment to thank our travel agent for printing out our itinerary with the name of the Italian travel agent and the street of our hotel and not pointing this out to us... Yes thank you. You tried to trick us, but we will prevail! Ahhh We finally made it.

The hotel was quaint. We quickly stored our gear and hit the streets without our luggage for the first time today. Venice is nice. Its greatest strength is having no cars. It's amazing how big of a difference cars can make. Our walk led us to San Marco Plaza. That was GREAT! The area was covered with pigeons. People would be out among them and throw food. If they stood in there, the pigeons would land all over them like a statue. It was quite humorous to watch.

We had some drinks at a small outdoor café. It was relaxing to sit back and watch the life around us. Our bill was a bit steep. We ended up paying about $6.00 for a Coke and $6.00 for a cappuccino. Ouch! I don't mind paying a little extra for things but $6.00 for a Coke?! It's hard to have a smile after that one.

As we ate our cookies that we kept from breakfast, I looked up and noticed the bell tower. It went up about 200 feet and I thought I saw a person up there. A few minutes later, my thoughts were confirmed. There were indeed people up there taking pictures. I knew I had to go up there. After our drinks, we headed over and it cost $10 for the both of us and it was well worth it. An elevator zoomed us up. The view was magnificent! You could see all around Venice. In fact, from up there, the people down below looked like...people, only much smaller. After I snapped pictures from every possible angle and direction, we took the elevator back down. Our next stop was to tour the San Marco Church itself. We entered through the big door. I'm not sure if it was one of those 25 year doors or just the usual thing. The inside was nice. The ceilings were detailed and covered with gold. The price for entering was free.

Once inside, you went straight down. You made a left, went straight, then left again, one more straight and you exited. It was quick. About five minutes really. Now, I understand the good price for that tour. They move you in and out with no time to stop and enjoy. After the church, we toured around the shops. The shops were everywhere. Aside from being the city on the water, Venice could be described as the city with the shops. Venetian glass is the hot-ticket item so we looked for that. A kind couple at a small shop really helped us out a lot. We bought a few nice items there. After more walking around, we discovered that a concerto was happening in the evening. We figured it would be a fun thing to do in the evening, so we bought tickets. A while later, we returned to our hotel room and got ready for the evening. After that we walked and found a nice little place near the Grand Canal to eat. We got to sit right next to the water. It was a bit chilly outside, but the place was enclosed and a heater kept us warm. The food was good and the service was decent. During dining, the water was starting to rise up. After a while, they were telling us to watch our coats on the ground. It seemed we were no longer dining next to the canal we were now dining in the canal. This was beginning to concern us a bit. A few minutes later, an air raid siren went off. This didn't sound good. We asked them what it meant. They said that that means there was going to be a flood. Hmmmm.. That couldn't be good. The night before had the worst flooding since 1960-something. We heard people speak of ankle deep to thigh deep water. We weren't sure how bad the floods that were on the way would be. They offered to have us move inside to finish our meal, and we accepted--although we didn't stay too much longer since we wanted to be close to the Concert hall. We paid and left before the flooding got too high.

When we arrived at the concert hall, the water had already surrounded the building. All around Venice, the water rises up through the drainage holes in the middle of the ground. It was very interesting to watch it happen. In Rome, we would see men selling umbrellas when the rain came. Now in Venice, we saw men selling tall rubber boots when the water flooded.

A small line had formed to get into the concert hall. A man with a dolly cart would ferry people across the flood. We accepted the ferry ride. I only had one pair of shoes, and although if he weren't there, I would have gotten them wet to take Misty across the water, but since he was there, I thought I would save my shoes. If they got soaked, I'd be visiting the local Food Locker. Yeah, they even had a Foot Locker there. Inside the church, we waited for the show to start.

Personally, I loved the concerto. The musicians were some of the best I've ever heard. The acoustics of the place were nice so you could hear all of the changes in their levels. At one point, during an adagio, I just closed my eyes and listened while my mind just relaxed and conjured up images of what the music suggested. I saw a boat going down the water of a long covered canal. I thought to myself, "This is the most beautiful music I've ever heard." This led to a chill that came over me and if I was more of a sensitive guy, I'd even admit that a few tears came to my eyes from the beauty of the music. Maybe it was the piece, or maybe it was how they played it, or maybe it was both. I was moved. I hope all people, on occasion, have the kind of moving sensation I had. The players were wonderful. There were a few guys and the rest were females. They would all watch each other to stay evenly timed. The instrumental soloists showed so much feeling in their work. It was hard not to envy their talents. After the show, the water had receded and we could walk along again. We went back to the hotel and crashed for the night.

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