venezia

7/11-9/11
This weekend we went to Venice, our last big Italy trip. We left Friday night on an overnight train after Caitlin and Carla got back from their cities fieldtrip. Our overnight train said that a reservation was optional, so we decided against having a sleeping compartment and just got on the train and sat in some unreserved seats. Our train was supposed to arrive around 5 am in Venice and we tried to pay attention to the stops as we went. As it got closer to the time we saw that we were just across the water from Venice so we knew we were the next stop. We stayed at this station for awhile but didn’t think anything of it. When we finally get going, we travel for while without stopping. It’s past the time we were supposed to arrive but we thought maybe it was due to the long stop at the last station. Finally we start stopping places, but none of them are where we want to be and we don’t recognize them so we have no idea where we are. We finally decide to just get off at the next stop and at this point it’s like 6:30 in the morning. We get off in a little town called Cervignano del Friuli and look on our map only to find that we are practically in Slovenia. The train’s final destination was Trieste and apparently had another final destination of Udine and split in that station right before Venice. It would have been nice if that was shown on some sign or something somewhere! Then we had to wait at the train station for the next train to Venice. The train we got on was coming from Austria and we got on hoping we wouldn’t need a reservation, but we did. The train lady was nice and let us get off at the next stop and said there was a regional train (no res required) coming right after this one. So then we waited at that stop and got on the regional with an entire population of loud Italian high schoolers. We finally arrived in Venice around 10 am, 5 hours late and then got on the water taxi to our hostel. We dropped of our stuff and went back to the main island in Venice. Venice is so confusing! There aren’t street names and everything is tiny little and windy. Luckily there were signs pointing the way to the main attractions that lead us though the maze that is Venice. We went and saw Piazza San Marco and went inside the basilica which was so cool. The ceilings were painted and you could really see the Byzantine influence in the architectural design – it was so different from the Etruscan everything we were used to seeing. Then we took a scenic vaporetto ride down the Grand Canal back to the train station to get our reservations for the train ride back Sunday night. It was such a cool way to see the city. When we got to the train station we went up to the window the make a reservation and found out that Trenitalia was about to go on strike so our original plan with the overnight train from Venice to Viterbo would not be running. The strike was planned as a 24 hour event starting at 9 pm on Sunday night and going until 9 pm on Monday night. Even though our overnight train left before then, all the trains would stop at 9, meaning we would be stranded somewhere. Our only option if we were set on leaving then was to rely on the few regional trains that were required to run during rush hour for commuters. The rush hour windows were like 2 hours though, so we could basically travel as far as we could for 2 hours and then be stuck there for the rest of the time. I had class Monday morning and had a midterm on Tuesday (actually a presentation that I hadn’t done yet) so decided after much contemplation that I would have to leave Sunday before the strike started, only slightly more than 24 hours after I had arrived. It sucked! Caitlin’s dad and grandpa were in Venice traveling as well so she and Carla decided to skip class and leave Monday night after the strike was over and get back Tuesday morning (right before Carla’s midterm as well). I was mad about having to cut my trip short but decided I would just have to cram a lot in (like usual) and hope that I could return next semester (I’m planning on going to Carnevale). So we went back and met with Caitlin’s relatives at their hotel and then I went and walked around myself while Carla went back to the hostel to take a nap. I got lots of cool stuff (Venetian masks, glass jewelry) from little street vendors near the Ponte Rialto and somehow managed not to get completely lost in the maze. Later we went out to dinner with Caitlin’s dad and grandpa and then took a vaporetto to Venice’s “best gelato shop” located right on the canal. The next day I had to leave around 1 to get to my train so we tried to get up early and squeeze some last minute (for me anyways) sight seeing in. Somehow with others, though, its hard to leave on time, so we got a bit of a late start. So we saw the bridge of sighs, unfortunately covered in scaffolding, which was covered in advertisements, and walked through the little streets for the last time going into random cathedrals and cute shops. Then I went to Caitlin’s dad’s hotel to get my backpack (where Caitlin and Carla ended up staying for their extra night since there was also a public transportation strike in Venice, and since the hostel was on a different island, they didn’t want to be stranded there all day) and took a vaporetto back to the train station, barely making my train. I didn’t have a reservation but I thought I could sit in the same section as I did last time, however those seats are also apparently reserved and I had to get up when the people with the reservations got on the train. After some of the bigger stops, like Bologna, the train was packed and I had to stand up towards the back of the compartment near the door with a bunch of other people (probably all traveling before the strike started). I tried to read my book for school but ended up next to some really creepy Italian guy who started and muttered things under his breath. Luckily a seat opened up and I got to sit the rest of the way.