Blogs from Venice, Veneto, Italy, Europe - page 134

A bit of housekeeping I know it has been absolutely ages since I have written anything on here and for that I apologize. I have been to so many wonderful places that I got behind and then swamped and then buried by the amount of updating I need to do...so I did not even try. After I am home, I will work on getting pictures and everything added so that you can see some more of my adventures. This week (23 June to 2 July) I am in Italy. I flew into Venice and will fly out of Palermo, Sicily on Sunday. I am doing a better job of keeping a journal while I travel so that it is not so daunting at the end of the trip. Also, just a note, quite a few people ... read more

早在04年慕尼黑上演的「旅舍雨後三人對話」中，我已從那一位友善多言的意大利同房口中得知意大利火車的「厲害」，但在登陸意大利之前，我最放心不下的，是聽說在街上很猖狂的扒手，結果則是…… 0815　Ancona車站候車室 　　昨晚倒像睡在監倉，同艙的只有一位男子。船很平穩，只是一直傳來機器的震動，與及黎明時份門外的怪聲。幸好有空檔來一記0530「早澡」，大約只睡了6小時，等落船時出奇地睏，但感覺已較清爽，真不明白那些習慣了起床後才洗澡的人。 1054 @Pesaro 　　車已行了半小時，仍沿著海灘漫遊；火車站名牌跟其他指示牌的分別，就是藍底白字白邊，與白底藍字藍邊而已。 1243 @Bologna 　　按道理Bologna是重要車站，但一副尊容實在不敢恭維。 2245　bed 5@Rm 206　熱 　　像難民營的大房，十多個床位，一個插座也沒有；偌大（而開放）的浴室，一個鉤子也沒有。 　　遇到的意大利人開著並不好笑的玩笑，車站推銷房間的職員搖身一變成為橋另一邊的小賣店老闆，那遙遠的麥當勞，仍未找到。Hostel canteen電視前是一大班德國青年（好像有一堆瑞典人，扮作唱對台），結果是屈機的2:0，感覺上跟德國沒有分別。 　　只是克羅地亞的慢是源自於真正的悠閒；而威尼斯則是給河水（水上巴士）所拖慢，到火車站35min！ ... read more

Thursday 22nd June Venice - Section 3 of 5 A cocktail of heat, mosquitoes, airplane engines and our mobile phone alarm woke us up nice and early today. However, wrecked from yesterdays trekking through the streets of Venice we took our time getting ready, not in a hurry to beat the crowds. We went through the rituals of getting ready; backpacker style and finally left the campsite at about 10:40am. We once again went on our bus trip to Venice and hopped off ready to explore at 11am. After yesterday’s explorations, we discovered that Venice wasn’t all that big and other than beautiful old churches, small streets, canals and great food; there wasn’t a lot left to see. So today we slowly wandered the streets with no real destination in mind and just tried to avoid ... read more

Venice - Section 2 of 5 - this is a long one, so grab some munchies! Our arrival to Venice was actually on Tuesday night at about 10:45pm. We walked off the plane to feel the muggy heat that surrounded us and our first night in Italy. Waiting for our bags was first on our checklist, then finding our bus. We walked through to baggage collection and waited for our bag to finish its ride on the conveyor belt before leaving the arrivals hall and outside to the taxi and bus rank. We found our bus and sat waiting. We arrived just in time, as the last bus was only 10 minutes away. So we waited for 10 minutes, watching other busses coming and going, and swatting mosquitoes. 10 minutes passed, then 15, then 20… finally ... read more

Venice, Italy: Venice is beautiful. It is just as amazing and unique as everyone says it is, and even more so. You can really see how Venetian architecture has permeated the world after being in Venice for a few days. The best advice we got, and absolutely the first thing I will tell anyone going to Venice, is to stay near the train station! You do not want to be lugging your bags around the city and over the canals! And taking a water taxi is very expensive, so just stay close to the train station, and the city is small enough that you can get anywhere you need to fairly quickly. So when we arrived from Florence to the main station, we walked to our hotel which was only about 100 meters from the station. ... read more