Day Six: Venice and “Venice-Venice”
June 29, 2008
So we managed to mess-up Venice. Funny thing about maps… if you flip them the wrong way, sometimes things that are “really” to your left end up looking like they’re to your right. So for instance, just generally, if you had a map of Venice (let’s just say) and you flipped it so San Marco *looked* like it was to your right, then it would make complete sense to start walking in that “right” direction. In fact, it would further make good sense for you to be pretty damn confused when, after a few hours of walking, you really didn’t come across anything like the “Venice-Venice” idea you’ve got in your head.
And that pretty much explains what we did. We had a map, we knew where we were, and yet, somehow, we managed to mess up every other piece of the map-reading experience after that. So, instead of spending the vast majority of our time in what I like to call “Venice-Venice”, where that means the Venice you’ve seen a zillion pictures of and all that, we spent a good chunk of time in just plain Venice – the Venice where people live, hang their laundry, sit around with their other Venetian friends, etc… So no, we didn’t actually see San Marco and the trillions of pigeons. No, we didn’t see a zillion cute shops. And no, I really don’t think Leslie wants to talk about it. If it’s any consolation, eventually we did find our way and managed to walk the correct way for about ten minutes or so, but that’s about it.
So now we can start from the beginning of our day and let you know what we did, in fact, see and do.
After a night of being eaten alive by mosquitoes, Leslie and I awoke to, thankfully, much cooler weather. This isn’t to say it wasn’t still super hot and humid, but, comparatively, it was a lot better than the day from hell (see previous entry for detailed explanation of what sort of hell we’re talking about here). Our hostel lady had mentioned that there was a grocery store right across the street from us and that we’d save a lot of money if we got food there and brought it with us to Venice. So, being the savvy travelers you know us to be, we decided to head over there and see what was going on…
First off it was air conditioned – so we knew things we’re going well. Then, we walked around and were shocked to see how good the prices were compared to the money we’d be spending earlier in the trip on food. But for me, the best part was the price of wine. You can get a bottle of wine for .99 euros! That’s like $1.50 USD!! You can’t even get a friggin Coke Zero for that price here (in a grocery store or otherwise). And, as a side note, I’d like to officially submit my complaint: Coke is way way way too expensive here. In Venice you were looking at $2.5 euro for one! And they’re smaller than in the US!
But back to the store…
After circling around once to get a feel for the place, Leslie and I settled on a few items: yogurt drink shake thingies for breakfast (I got a massive one while Leslie got a baby sized one and a little pizza thing) and for lunch, a big loaf of bread, a massive circle of cheese (the sort of cheese was unknown but we were feeling adventurous), fresh salami, and chocolate wafer cookies (though, as noted in the video, the cookies were really just mine. Leslie doesn’t really go crazy for cookies the way I do. She’s weird like that)
After buying our groceries, Leslie and I got on a bus and found ourselves in Venice. This is where we messed up. We ended up spending about two hours walking around the wrong Venice. At one point Leslie did say, “Something is just missing. Rick Steve said ‘get ready to splurge!!’ but there’s just nothing to splurge on.” Eventually we sat down and reexamined the map… which is when we realized that we had the orientation between the train station and Rome Plaza was off. As we flipped the map we slowly looked at each other. Shit.
But no matter! We found our way to the good area and decided that the best way to keep ourselves oriented would be to do what Leslie has been dying to do since way before the trip, namely, to take a gondola!
Leslie let me know that Rick Steve said that the average price for a ride during the day sits around 75-80 euro. And, that sometimes, they try and rip you off. I then knew there’d haggling in our future!! And oh do I love to haggle. We found a gondola place and Leslie asked them how much it was “cuantos cuestos?” They said 100 euro for 40 minutes. I then gave a look of surprise, grabbed Leslie, and told them that we’d been quoted at a lot less. Then we left. We waited about 2 two minutes before the guy came over and started the haggle-speak. I gleefully played and go us down to 70 euro for 40 minutes. It’s still a LOT of money, but this was Leslie’s big fantasy!It was listed as one of the things she was most looking forward to! And so, we went.
And, because this was Leslie’s big thing, I’m happy to announce that the following will be her verbatim account of the experience (finally Leslie types!!):
“Ok, we sat down in the gondola which had black cushions (pretty gothic looking) and a sketchy gondaler. It was pretty awkward at first because he didn’t initiate any conversation, but Heather and I managed to make small talk. This guy was born and raised in Venice and claimed he doesn’t sing (how did he qualify for the job then?!). Further, he ended up taking us the Venice way and not through “Venice-Venice” so yet again, we missed the opportunity to see what we/I had hoped.
On a positive note, it was great to ride through the canal and view the buildings from a different angle. Plus, I got to ride with my Heather and people did take lots of pictures of us on our “romantic” ride. It was nice, but next time I’d like to start the ride in the “Venice-Venice” area and ride at night. Hopefully Anthony will take me!”
And there you have it – Leslie’s account! I thought the whole gondola experience was super hyped up but I did feel a bit bad for Leslie. I think she was most looking forward to Venice and we totally messed up large parts of it. But, it was fun to see some of Venice from a different view and to learn a bit about life there. Plus, by nature I’m a giver, and so, I’d like to think by sacrificing my own “Venice-Venice” experience I’m giving you the information you need so you don’t have to! Yah, you like that don’t you? 
Moving on with our day in Venice, after we got off the gondola we knew we wanted to go to Moreno, the island where all the glass blowing is. And so, we went by water taxi (which, I have to confess, was much cooler than the gondola ride since we went straight down and out through the main canal).
Moreno is friggin full of glass. Seriously, I don’t know how many days it would take to enter every single glass store on that island. Days! Weeks! Months! Years!! It’s incredible. And while most stores seemed to carry the same general stuff, if you looked hard enough you could find some unique-ish pieces in some of them. The two best parts of the Moreno experience were
1. Eating our picnic after a few hours of looking around (see video)
2. Directly after our picnic we went to the big glass blowing place on the island and we met a guy who I think must run the place. He was probably in his late forties, super well dressed, handsome, and (lucky for us!) chatty. So we first went in and looked around in the down stairs area because all the other areas were closed off. (in Europe all the stores close around 5ish… it’s weird). So we were looking around downstairs and we started talking to the guy. I told him I thought all the glass was beautiful and that I really liked the bigger fancy things, and that one day I’d come back and get some real piece of art from there, blah blah blah. Oh and we talked about California and all that, too. So we were about to leave when he looked to us and said, “So do you want to see upstairs?” At which point we must have looked like 5 year-old kids who were just asked if they’d like some warm chocolate chip cookies and cold milk (well, 5 year-old kids and me when I’m asked if I’d like some of that wholesome goodness…but anyways!). We said “yes!” and then he led the way. He took us upstairs, turned back on all the lights and before us were rooms and rooms of the most beautiful glass I’ve ever seen. This one room had serious pieces of art. I’m talking giant sculptures and pieces of the most brilliant colors and shapes. Soooo beautiful. He then went with us room by room as our jaws continued to drop and our eyes, twinkle. It was so fun. When we’d looked around enough we headed out the door and on the way out he looked to me and said, “I’d better see you here again, Heather. It’s this sort of glass that makes Moreno famous – and now you’ve seen it”. It was so neat.
After that we left Moreno and were all happy inside (because of 1 + 2 + our new jewelry!)
And then the craziness re-began.
So Leslie, being the “planner” on the trip recommended that we stop by the ferry station and figure out what time the ferry left for Croatia the next morning – that way we could figure out if we’d have time to actually go to San Marco and do all the Venice-Venice stuff. So we head over. Turns out, every single last boat to Croatia the following day was sold out. Crap! We then realized that the only way for us to get to Croatia by any time the next day was to take an overnight train… and overnight train that was leaving the station 2 hours after we learned of its existence. Now I thrive on these crazy hectic moments. Where decisions have to be made and you’ve got to go a bit nuts. I looked at Leslie, looked at the train station woman, and said “We’ll take them”. We got the tickets and ran for the bus station (remember: our hostel was about a 10-15 minute bus ride from where we were at). We stood and stood at the bus station but for the first time ever, our bus line didn’t show. For like twenty minutes, no bus. So what did Leslie recommend? (if you can’t guess than you haven’t been following this blog enough!) Leslie said, “Heather, we’re taking a cab”. I agreed and we were off.
We got to the hostel, checked out, jammed our stuff in our bags and ran out the door again. Luckily, we made it back with about 15 minutes to spare.
Now I’ve never been on an overnight train before, but to me it has a very Harry Potter Hogwarts feel to it… so I was all sorts of excited. Plus, I was over Venice and quite ready to leave a bit early. And, lucky for us, it turned out to be great. We were in a cabin that was supposed to hold 6 people (gods only know how) but it ended up being just the two of us and a girl named Fleur. Fleur is from Perth, Australia and before that Scotland. And, get this – she’s currently traveling all over Europe alone (which I think is so friggin awesome). She’s been all over the place and hasn’t run into any real problems (in terms of safety and whatnot). And, she’s going to continue to travel until all her money runs out. More power to her!
So there we all were chit-chatting away for a good while when the two guys in the compartment adjacent to ours ended up coming over because they were stuck with some crazy woman and her son. So that was super fun. We even got Fleur, after some serious persuading, to guest star in our video!! So I hope you enjoy that!
So that my friends was our crazy crazy day.
And, to see all the pictures from said craziness, you can go here.
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I guess I should have given you a crash course on map reading and how to use a compass before you left, but Fleur seems to think you made the better decision by avoiding the more touristy sections of Venice and seeing the parts that actually contain your day to day Venician life (some people actually aim to avoid popular tourist spots)… I guess you wont know if you like touristy Venice better until you come back to visit that guy from Moreno again.
aaaaaaaaaaahahahahahahahahaa haha
how funny!! it was so nice to meet u guys, hope ur having a great trip! Your blog is so good!!
c u soon xox