A Trip To Venice

My first night in Bolzano was a Thursday, and then I was lucky enough to have Friday as my night off, so Rita and I decided to travel to Venice for the night. Rita spent a lot of time online trying to book a hotel for when we arrived without any success, so we just decided to go and take our chances - in the worst case scenario, we would catch the latest train back to Bolzano so we had as much time in Venice as possible.

In true Italian style, everything that could go wrong with this trip did. We arrived at Bolzano train station at 9am having checked the times of the trains but were told by the friendly (but in retrospect, not so competent) ticket seller that the 9.30am train would be cheaper. We foolishly took her advice and bought tickets for the 9.30am train with a change in Verona. What she didn't tell us was that the train from Verona to Venice left before the train we were on arrived, and so it was impossible to make that connection. The next train to Venice left an hour and a half later. Not quite enough time to do much, but we did have a bit of a walk around Verona and saw some of the sights. It is quite a pretty city and I will go back for a visit a bit later in the month.

Finally we arrived in Venice at about 2.30pm. Our first stop was the tourist office who told us that the only accommodation available was about 25km out of town and cost about 150 Euros for the night. This is the first time in all of my travels that I have not been able to book something cheap and easy on arriving in a city. (Did I mention how much I love Italy?!?). So we bought our tickets on the last train back to Bolzano (at 11pm, so still plenty of time to look around), paid the outrageous fee to check our backpacks at the station (no convenient luggage lockers, of course) and headed into Venice.

Venice really is a beautiful city. This was my second time here and it really is very scenic. Our reduced time in the city meant that our list of things we wanted to visit while we were there was no longer possible, so we brought it down to the main touristy things. A boat ride on the grand canal (a gondola was too expensive, so we travelled on the cheap ferries instead, which are crowded, but still nice), the Doge's Palace, St Marks and the Rialto Bridge.

Arriving at St Marks square (pictured above), we saw a very long line to get into St Mark's Cathedral, so we decided the Doge's Palace would be the first stop. The signs said it was open until 7pm, so we had plenty of time. Until some people that were in the line in front of us told us that the ticket office had closed at 4pm. Where's the logic in that?!? So we missed out on the Doge's Palace (surprising? NO! annoying? YES!)

We then joined the line to get into St Mark's (pictured above). Thankfully, we actually got in and had a good look around, including the treasury which contained lots of religious relics (a thigh bone of a saint, more of the nails that crucified Jesus and pieces of wood from the cross... that was a very big cross). It is a stunning building.

After winding our way through the narrow streets and a little bit of shamelessly touristy shopping (everyone needs a Venetian mask...) we arrived at the Rialto Bridge right on sunset and got a beautiful view over the grand canal.

We had dinner in a pretty average touristy restaurant on the Grand Canal (suckers....) and found this amazing mask and puppet shop.

That evening we continued wandering the streets of Venice, taking lots of great night photos of the city.

We also made a stop at Harry's Bar where Hemingway used to hang out, and where they invented the Bellini. It was far too bright and expensive in there, so we had a drink at the much nicer bar opposite instead, but still took photos outside Harry's.

Finally, we arrived back in Bolzano at 2.30am. It wasn't the most successful side trip ever, but it was certainly a memorable one!