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Published: October 31st 2011
It is now Sunday late afternoon and I’m writing this offering from our very nice apartment in Venice, Italy. We are just having a little ‘down’ time afternoon a very busy walking and ‘water bus’ day in this beautiful but very different city.
However let’s go back a day or so and finish Berlin off. We got to the Reichstag for our visit with no problems. Apparently the Germans had some sort of security threat made against the Reichstag at some time since we were here last 3 years ago because we discovered, quite be accident when talking to our Segway guide the other day, that you can’t just walk up and buy a ticket for the Reichstag visit, you have to pre-book on the internet. Joy went onto the site a couple of nights ago and could only get a straight walk up the dome ticket, no guided tour places left for some days (which of course we didn’t have) Hence the 7.45pm tour time which wasn’t the best unfortunately as you couldn’t really see much apart from the lights. You get an ‘audiophone’ as part of the ‘free’ ticket so we got those and listened to a guide tell
us about what we should be able to see as we wound our way up the walkway inside the Reichstag dome (which incidentally looks right down onto their legislative chamber – a bit like looking down into parliament from directly above – birds eye view) However all we could see were the lights but it was still well worth the visit.
We got back to our apartment area around 9pm and decided to have an evening meal at a restaurant. We found one right next door to our apartment entrance which was very Italian in theme so we got ready for Venice and the rest of Italy with something nice and Italian.
Back to the apartment and some packing ready for our early start the next morning.
Saturday was a 5.45am start with showers etc. and finish the packing. We had a taxi booked for 7.45am to go to the Tegel (Berlin) airport for a 9.15 flight to Venice via Munich. The landlord for the apartment was coming at 7.15am to book us out and return our 120euro deposit, hence the early start.
Got to the airport and on the way to Munich – very late however. Munich was blanketed
by thick fog so once we got on the Lufthansa jet on time, the captain announced that we couldn’t go anywhere due to the fog in Munich and we sat in the plane on the tarmac in Berlin for nearly half on hour. Just a little bit of angst set in as we only had a 45 minute turn around between our flight to Munich and the flight from there to Venice.
We took off and headed south and as we got towards Munich we were flying in beautiful clear skies but we could see the ground fog quite clearly. It got later and later and I doubted the plane would even try to land BUT NO, down we went. We could see the odd small clearing in the fog and it was very obvious that it was just a very low ground fog but a real ‘pea souper’. We descended through it obviously on an instrument landing because you couldn’t see the end of the wings, that’s how thick it, when all of a sudden we hit the ground and landed. Pilot must have been flying totally blind and I guess it’s times like that that they earn their money. However we landed just as our Venice flight should have been leaving. Unloaded and got inside the terminal and joined a very long queue at the Lufthansa Service Desk for a new flight. Should have been on the way to Venice at 1105am, new flight didn’t leave until 3.15pm (hopefully) with an ETA in Venice of 4.20pm. Quick text to Roberto who was meeting us at our apartment at 1.30pm, supposedly, with the new plans and then settled into waiting in the Munich airport lounge. Had a nice (expensive) meal at an airport restaurant and did a lot of reading and waiting. The fog appeared to clear but hung around all day and, of course, our flight to Venice was delayed due to the back log of repositioning planes all day. We finally got away from Munich about 4pm, a little frustrated with losing an afternoon in Venice BUT them’s the breaks when you fly, I guess. It was also a great study in human nature. We were in a long queue waiting to have a new flight allocated, just, as a good Kiwi, accepting that there was nothing anyone could do about the fog, but we watched so many people getting very frustrated and angry with the poor Lufthansa ladies as though they were entirely to blame for the whole problem. We couldn’t understand what was being said but one didn’t need to understand the words to get the meaning behind them When our turn came round I smiled nicely at the lady behind the counter and engaged in pleasant conversation and I think she was relieved that finally there was someone who wasn’t bitching an moaning about things.
Anyway we finally got to Venice, where we were happy to see bright clear weather as we landed at Marco Polo airport. Longish bus ride to the old city island and then onto the Vaparetto water boat to the San Samuele station where Roberto had said he would meet us.
He showed us to our apartment which was only a 1 minute walk from the grand canal and S. Samuele station. Again, Joy did very well with the apartment as we have a lovely ground floor apartment with everything that’s required to be very comfortable.
By the time we got settled in it was getting on towards 7.30pm so we headed out for a walk through the narrow alleyways and over the small canals that make Venice the very unique city that it is. We found the Venetian form of convenience store and purchased bread, spreads, milk, meat and cheese for breakfasts and took that back to the apartment as it was quite heavy (the 2 large bottles of diet Coke –or as they call it in Europe, ‘cola light’ – weighed it down somewhat). We headed out again and did some window shopping and eventually stopped at a lovely little restaurant and had dinner – Joy had spaghetti and meatballs and I had a ham and cheese pizza – yummy!!!!!! However it takes a long time to eat in Italy and it was getting on for 10.30 by the time we got back to the apartment and so much needed bed time as it had been a long and tiring day.
This morning, Sunday started a bit strangely. I woke and in the dark looked at the cell phone for the time – 7.10am. Good, good time yet before hitting the floor. Started reading and Joy woke and asked what the time was so I looked at my watch thinking it must be about 7.30am and my watch said 8.30am. Had no way of knowing which one was right but I hadn’t changed my watch as we understood we hadn’t changed time zones. The clock in the kitchen said 8.30am as well. So we got cracking and eventually, after putting some washing into the machine, headed to the boat station to go around to the main railway station to book our rain tickets for Naples and the Amalfi Coast on Wednesday and the seats back to Rome on the 8th November. I was reading the electronic timetable at the boat station near the railway station and the time was showing that it was an hour behind our watches. Still confused we eventually headed back, by boat bus, to the apartment to hang up the washing and then wandered off intending to head to San Marco and spotted an old church advertising a Vivaldi Concert tonight. We bought tickets and asked the young lady at the ticket desk what the time was and she happily informed us that Italy put their clocks back 1 hour last night at the end of their version of daylight saving. So the mystery was solved (we hope). We changed our watches and got on with the walking.
Found San Marco (or St. Marks Square for the uninitiated) the most famous of the Venice square as this was the centre of Venetian power for centuries back in history. We spent the afternoon wandering around, window shopping (and making a few purchases) and photographing an videoing as we went.
Venice now has a ‘Hard Rock Café’, something that wasn’t here 3 years ago, so OF COURSE, once the sign was seen advising that it was off to find it. It was just off San Marco and we had a lunch and Joy bought the Tshirt!!!!! She now has quite a collection from the last trip and from this one and there are still a few to come yet. Las Vegas, New York, Niagara Falls (USA), Niagara Falls (Canada), Paris, London, Berlin and now Venice.
After lunch we wandered around a bit more and then caught a water bus that was going the very long way to our San Samuele stop. It went clockwise right around Venice from San Marco going right out past the port where there were about 5 cruise ships berthed. It took us over an hour to get to San Samuele but was a fantastic way of seeing Venice, from the Grand Canal. We had outside seats right at the front of the boat which was just great for photographs.
Everywhere we went today was just a seething mass of people. We thought it was just because it was Sunday but we discovered from one of the shopkeepers we spoke to that we have landed in Venice slap bang in the middle of a 4 or 5 day holiday weekend and it appears that every man and his (or her) dog is visiting Venice either for the super long weekend or for the day. Maybe tomorrow will be quieter.
Tonight, Sunday, we are heading out at 8.30pm for our Vivaldi Concert. I think it is Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. We attended a concert 3 years ago here of that but I don’t think it is possible to ever tire of listening to such music especially in Venice.
We have discovered that we can get Wifi in the main squares in Venice and have signed up to a 3 day plan so I’m hoping that I can get this blog done tomorrow morning when we head to San Marco for a 4 hour walking photography tour that Joy has pre-booked for just the 2 of us. (Hopefully this one will turn up as the guy in Paris forgot). I’m going to take the laptop with us and get to the square early and try to hook up and send it. There might not be any photos but I’ll do what I can given the laptop battery isn’t the longest laster.
That’s our first taste of Venice (again) and it is everything that we remembered it to be – old, very busy, quite colourful, based entirely on water and incredibly fascinating. Put the hustle and bustle of NYs Time Square onto water and it is just the same – but instead of taxis and cars it is water taxis, and water buses and gondolas everywhere. Lots of fun.
It has been a real mission getting this blog to download in an internet cafe. It is now Monday afternoon and the system I had hoped would work did not at all so we have had to find an internet cafe to do it in. Hopefully it will work properly. However it means we may not get anything else on line until we get to Positano where we know we have wifi in the apartment. Ciao!!
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Rhys
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Christines house
Hi Mum and Dad Im sure Ryan has already told you, but if he hasnt. We spent about 2 or so hours at Christines house the other day. Moved the boxes and furniture up to the sleepout, put the rubbish down in the garage and I weed eated the whole, well most of, the property, took me over 1 1/2 hours to do. The overgrown grass situation was nearly as bad as the lower section of our property. Everything was all ok there though. Im enjoying reading the Blogs so keep them coming. Love you both. Keep having fun :)