Colorado Cruiser: Italy Day 6 Florence to Venice

Friday May 8th, 2009

Our last morning in the Diana Park Hotel. I've mentioned that the clerk of this hotel has a very warped sense of travel time because he tells us that pretty much everything in Florence is a short 10 minute walk away when it's actualy 30 to 45 minutes to get anywhere.

But I haven't mentioned the rest of the wonderful attributes of the hotel. Like the elevator. We've all been on spiral stairs before. You walk around and around going up to the floors above. But imagine if you hollowed out the middle of the staircase and put an elevator shaft right up the middle. That would mean that you would have to have a round elevator, and that it would be a pretty small one. That's exactly what this hotel has. Mike, me, and both our luggage barely fit in it with both of us crammed against the wall. There is no sense of movement as the elevator rises and falls, and it takes 30 seconds to go 2 floors.

When we got the hotel, the map seemed like we would be out of town center on a fairly obscure street. Instead, we seem to be on one of the busiest streets feeding into town. There is a constant stream of traffic past our window. That wouldn't be a big deal except that the hotel's air conditioning won't be turned on until June. The first night we tried opening the window but when the 4th ambulance drove past in 30 minutes, Mike decided to suffer the heat rather than the noise. The second night we begged the clerk to turn on our air conditioning. He did something and it wasn't nearly as bad last night.

The bathroom is shaped like a wedge of pie, and not a big piece of pie either. The end of the room with the toilet in it has a window that you can barely reach by standing sideways. The other end has the tub and ummmm I guess you could call it a shower. There's one of those handheld shower wands on a flexible hose with a mount about 4 foot up the wall. But there is no shower curtain. The tub is way to short to actually try to bathe in, so I took quick showers to try to minimize the water damage.

We ate the free breakfast again, but stuck to yogurt, fruit, and pastries.

We asked the clerk to call us a cab, then went outside to wait for it. I again marvelled (or shuddered) at the audacity of the scooters. Every time the light changed to red, the scooters would work their way up through the cars. Kind of like sand filling in around big rocks, until there were 15 to 20 scooters around the 2 lead cars and they nearly filled the street including the left side. Then when the light changed, the scooters all surged forward trying to get in front of the cars and merge back into 2 lanes before the oncoming rush of cars and scooters hit them. I tried to get a pictures but it was just too chaotic to photograph.

We got to the train station with plenty of time so that we weren't rushing. We got a few drinks to take with us, then waited for our Eurostar to show on the big board. We waited and waited with the departure time getting nearer, but still no platform was listed.

Finally with 10 minutes to go, the platform was displayed and an announcement was made. A huge surge of people rushed toward the platform. We were in car 2, and of course, it was on the other end of the train from where we were. We started walking and heard an announcement for final boarding and immediate departure of the train. So again, we started running down the platform. We got to car 2 and found our seats easily enough. The train left about 3 minutes after we sat down.

I spent most of the trip writing the report for day 4. Mike spent the trip sleeping. I've been tired each night, but I feel like I'm getting plenty of rest. It's probably the altitude here. There is so much more oxygen in the air than I'm used to getting in Colorado, that I'm resting well.

We arrived in Venice by 10:00. The train runs all the way right out onto the Island at the North end of the Grand Canal. There was also a bridge with cars on it parallel to the tracks. Mike checked one of the guide books and it said that you could drive out to the island, but that it cost something like 20 euros an hour to park out there.

We got off the train and walked outside to our first view of the canals of Venice. The grand canal cuts like a bit snake through Venice in the shape of a backward S with the train station at the top and St Mark's cathedral at the bottom. Our hotel is near St Mark's and we could either get on the water bus or hire a water taxi. Mike opted for a water taxi because we weren't sure how the buses worked.

We found the taxi stand and they pointed us to the next available boat. Our taxi driver took us down a side canal as a shortcut. We stood in the back of the boat just staring around us at the other boats, houses and buildings right on the water, and the people everywhere. It was nice ride and pretty quick. Eventually he drove into a narrow canal. We went a couple hundred yards in to where it widened just a bit. There was another taxi already moored, so he honked his horn. It was amazing to watch these 2 drivers manuever the boats without ever touching each other or the walls. When our taxi finally got to the off ramp, he swore then told us that the gate was locked so we couldn't get off there. He backed the boat the whole way back out to the Grand Canal then took us another 1/4 mile down to the docks in front of St Mark's. We asked him where our hotel was and he waved vaguely across the square, then left.

We drug our luggage away from the water and tried to figure out where our hotel was. Before we had gone far, Mike decided to call the hotel and ask for directions. They told us to cross the square and we would see the hotel. But cross in which direction? They also said the hotel was near the Hard Rock Cafe, and that was something we could ask for directions to. We asked a few people and were pointed to the North East. We picked a passageway and walked out of the square, and there was the Hard Rock. A large canal dead ended right in front of the Hard Rock, and across the canal was our hotel. We back tracked to St Mark's square and picked a passage more towards our hotel. We crossed yet another canal and there was the lobby of the hotel in front of us.

The clerk in the hotel seemed to take an instant dislike to Mike and I. He ignored us for several minutes, then when he finally asked what we wanted, he first told us that checkin wasn't for a few hours yet. Mike asked if we couldn't check our luggage and get some lunch, then come back and check-in. He grudgingly agreed to store our bags for us and just waved us away. We asked if he was going to give us check tags and he kind of sighed and started to do that. Mike also asked when the bags would get put away. We tried to make a couple of joking remarks as we left, but he just ignored us.

Mike checked the guide book and found a restaurant nearby so we headed off to brave the streets of Venice. We crossed some canals and found the main road that would lead to our lunch. We wandered back and forth a couple of times without seeing it, then Mike spotted a neon sign hanging high up above the road. It had an arrow pointing down a very narrow road. We walked that way and found the restaurant. It looked very new age with bright colored modernist painting on the walls and soft American jazz playing in the background.

We both got the tourist special. It came with a bruchetta appetizer with peas and cheese on toast. Then I got cheese raviolis with shrimp and Mike got something else. That fact will be important later.

After lunch we went back to the hotel to try again to check in. Our same friendly clerk was there to greet us, but this time there was also an older gentleman who seemed to temper him a bit. He got us checked in then got our key and led us out the door, across the street and into another part of the hotel. Our room was an "upgraded" room, which I think meant that there was enough room to walk around the sides of the beds, but only barely. But the best thing was that the air conditioning worked.

We left our stuff and headed out to look around St Mark's. The line to enter the cathedral was very long, but the line to go to the top of the bell tower was short, so we decided to do that first. We didn't have to climb stairs this time since it has an elevator. The sky was clear and we had incredible views of the entire city. We were taking pictures when I heard an electric motor kick on somewhere nearby. I wondered what it was until I caught a glimpse of motion out of the corner of my eye, I turned around and the the big bell was beginning to swing. It was a bell tower after all.

The bell started ring right as I got my camera switched to movie mode and started a video. The bell rang (very loud) for several minutes. Most people covered their ears and headed for the elevator. I video'd the whole ringing, then went back to taking pictures. As we were getting ready to go down, my stomach started to ache a bit. It wasn't bad so we went down and kept going.

We bought 48 hour tickets for the water bus and hopped on the first one we saw because we had no idea how they worked. It turned out to be going in the direction we wanted. We got off near the first big bridge. My stomach was really starting to do flip flops one me and I didn't want to get too far from the hotel if it got worse. As we walked around, we came across a cart that was selling fresh coconut. I bought a chunk for one euro and nibbled on it as we walked. It helped a bit, but not enough. We took a few pictures then got on a bus to go back to St Marks.

Once we got back to the room I laid down and almost immediatly fell asleep. I slept for 4 hours while Mike did some work on his laptop.

When I got up, I felt a bit later and I figured Mike must be starving. We headed out to the square to find an open cafe, but just about the time we found one I felt really bad so we went straight back to the hotel room. I threw up a minute after we got back and immediatly felt better. All I could taste was that shrimp from lunch. I was too tired and weak to go out again, but I felt much better and fell asleep almost instantly.

Mike and our Eurostar train as we began the hike to car #2