Tuesday, October 30th, 2007
We caught our 7:50am train without any problems into Slovenia, where we acquired several new passport stamps for leaving Croatia, then entering Slovenia and then entering Italy. The Slovenian passport control made us slightly nervous, as they spend a good 10 minutes speaking in Slovenian over their headsets ….and all we understood was “Katie” when they were talking and reading our passports. Luckily, our parking tickets in NYC did not transfer internationally, and we were on our merry way.
We arrived in Venice in the early afternoon. The weather was rainy, so we decided to take the vaporetto to our ‘one star’ hotel. After moving to our third room, we finally got internet connection, and we decided to enjoy the wifi– and relax.We decided to wonder the ‘hood for dinner, and ironically found the Osteria ae Cravate… which is “Tie Tavern.” Little did Venice know, that we came from Croatia, where the tie, or ‘caravat’ was invented. Since we realized it was fate, we had a lovely dinner which consisted of pasta and some of the best homemade sauce we have ever had.
On Wednesday, we woke up refreshed and to a beautifully sunny Halloween morning. We enjoyed our limited breakfast, included in the hotel price, and we made our way ‘exploring’– embracing that we did not have a map. It didn’t really matter anyways, since many of venice’s streets dead end– we were smart enough to buy the ‘rolling venice’ card and unlimited vaporetto (water taxi) access for our next three days. We enjoyed ‘rolling’ around venice, considering the discount card was for us old fogies (until age 29! phew! we just made it!) and we really got to see so much more then just looking at a map.We found S.Margarita square (which was not selling anything on the rocks) and enjoyed pizza and pasta for lunch next to a very pleasant retired couple from …guess where. Long Island, NY. The highlight was the woman telling us how disgusting the pigeons were in St. Mark’s Square– and I quote:”Those things are rats with wings! So of course, I had to pay my euro and feed them… and those things attacked me!”
Yes, we were as confused as you… but her husband was still belly-laughing from the whole experience. We have pictures from our visit of the idiotic children (or should we say parents that gave them the 1 euro) feeding the filthy animals. After lunch, we visited the Leonardo da Vinci exhibit at a local church and saw many of the artistic as well as scientific works of ol’ Leonardo. We continued our tour ‘without maps’ and finally decided to take the boat cruise around Venice on the Vaporetto. We saw many sites off the Grand Canal, including the old school Gondolas (for 80 euro an hour…no thanks) and the famous Rialto bridge.
We got back to our hotel to rest before our big night of trick or treating! Or…not. We did get suckered into “Carnival: The Show.” Luckily, with our “Rolling Venice” card we got 1/2 off admission, so we were pretty pleased with ourselves.
The show started at 8pm, and also included unlimited drink and ‘dinner’ which consisted of many appetizers. At our ‘dinner’ portion, we met a lovely Irish couple from south of Dublin celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary.They were ecstatic to hear our engagement news, and immediately asked when and if they were going to be invited. It is really funny how all of Ireland is seriously related! During the show, we learned about the history of Venice, the masquerades, the plague (which killed 30% of Venice) and the rich culture of this island city.
Our last day in Venice was a looooooooong one, considering we were signed up for the 10:51pm night train. We left our bags with our trusty hotel and decided to explore Lido island, one of Venice’s only islands that allows cars. We enjoyed our 3,000th delicious pizza (you really can’t have too many) for lunch and decided to tour the rest of the island by bike.
After seeing the beach and many of the closed down beach huts (got to love the off season), we hitched the next vaporetto to the dreaded St. Mark’s Square to be ultimate tourists and get Dermotino (his Italian name, thanks Ron & David) his first Bellini at Harry’s Bar.
After feeling completely robbed by Harry (to be expected, that our drinks were almost 1/2 of our accommodation for two days), we continued exploring to find Katie’s heaven on earth. A gourmet chocolate market. Dermot caught Katie’s drool, while they decided to head for Venice’s casino, the first and oldest casino established in 1638.
Well, nothing quite feels like Italian Mafia until you go to the Venice Casino. We had our passports checked, pictures taken and pretty much blood samples drawn to get access to the Casino. Dermot didn’t have to ‘rent’ a suit jacket, due to his coat looking similarly enough… so in we went!
Our first and only stop… roulette. Dermot and Katie’s lucky number (and anniversary) is on the 18th…. and low and behold…our 10 euro turned into $140 euro like THAT.
We gambled a bit more, enjoyed our free appetizers and drinks (dinner!), and cashed out 100 euro up. Our next and last stop on our whirlwind of Venice, was to see Vivaldi’s four seasons.
We arrived just in time to get some of the last seats in the house. There were seven members in the orchestra, including the ‘master violinist’ who was also the conductor. Dermot and I both enjoyed our third night of culture, following the Croatian Ballet and Croatian (but in Italian) Opera.
After the show, we made our way back to collect our bags to catch our 10:51pm (or in European time, 23:51) overnight train….to France.