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Published: August 10th 2006
Piazza San Marco
Watch out for the pigeons!Gotta love overnight trains. Our seats were occupied by people who were fast asleep so we had the fun job of waking them up & sending them on their way. It was a 6 seater compartment & sleeping was a chore. At around 5am 2 old ducks opened the door & were claimimg seats. A drawn out struggled ensued, just what you need at that hour ! Eventually the old ducks won & took there seats...very uncomfortable.
We arrived in Venice at 9am & began the hunt for our hostel. The first thing you notice is the canals & then the lack of cars. It is a very cool place & everyone travels by foot, gondola, or boat. The streets are a maze & the multitude of little bridges add to the confusion. There is some 150 canals & over 400 bridges. We eventually found the hostel & the guy on the counter was nice enough to let us check-in early. That was where the positives for the hostel ended. I won't bore you with the details, but it would go down as one of the worst.
Our location was great, right in the heart of campo san margherita.
Our doorstep was a hive of activity. Lots of good restaurants, gelati shops & bars. It's a hang out for uni students who gather in droves to drink the afternoons away & sing, sing, sing, sing... At night is was good to grab a random spot by the canal & soak up the atmosphere along with a few drinks. I found the beers in the bar to be super expensive & ended up switching to wine to help the finances.
We discovered that Venice is made up of 5 quartets. We stayed in Dorsoduro (which we were quite happy with) but checked out San Marco, Castello, & San Polo in our walks. I stumbled across a scam one day. After watching for a while I could tell that there was a group of around 4 people who worked together. They were betting 50 euro a pop & each winning & losing their share. People would watch & think it was easy before losing their doe. I watched one American couple blow 100 Euro, got them good... anway I called out that it was a SCAM as I walked off & laughed. A few minutes later I saw two of
the guys in an alley way. They passed something from one to another before seeing me watching. After this they scurried apart, but left the item in the alley. One of the guys kept circling & looking at me before going back to get it. I noticed them again a little while after & again they seemed to be watching us. I was a little spooked so we upped the pace a little, only to nearly run head on to the third guy. He looked at us funnily before grabbing his mobile & making a call. That was enough for me, so we headed home...
It only takes a few days to cover off Venice, so we found ourselves a little bored on the 3rd & 4th days. For this reason we decided to visit Lido Island. It was only a short boat ride away & it was nice to hang out on a sandy beach for a change. It was a perfect day & it was good just to laze about. The Island was very small & it didn't take long to walk from one side to the other.
Our last night just happened to correspond with
a yearly festival, celebrating the end of the plague way back when. The festival culminated with a massive 11:30pm fireworks display. We joined the masses by the watefront & grabbed a vantage point. Sadly it turned out to be a non event when the fireworks were moved from the water to a more secluded area due to the winds. This left thousands of us being able to hear the fireworks but not being able to see anything... massive disappointment.
That was enough for us, so we called it a night. The next day we would begin our voyage to Greece.
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Belinda
non-member comment
Venice looks gorgeous!
Di and Kurt, Venice looks gorgeous! I'm sitting at my desk nursing a Gloria Jeans coffee that I so needed to spoil myself with this friday morning and MISSING YOU SO SO SO MUCH! It is so bloody cold here is Brissy -- totally Ekka weather! It's so fricken hard to get out of bed. But where you are, the weather just looks glorious!!! I am so jealous -- your adventures look exactly like that ----- ADVENTURES! You guys have already seen and done so much! I just can't wait to see you (in only 16 weeks, mind you) so that I can hear first hand all your stories and stuff!