Venice

In typical Italian fashion the bus was late arriving at the bus stop to take us to the station this morning. Luckily there was another couple waiting for the bus as well, which allowed us to split the cost of two taxis more evenly. The taxis were worth the money just to be able to relax at the station rather than worry about arriving on time for the train.

Just before the train was supposed to arrive they announced the train would now arrive at track 4 instead of 3 and was 10 minutes behind. Ok, I thought, I have time to run to the toilette because I really needed to go after just rushing out of the hostel. So I walk off. The toilettes happened to be at the other end of the station, so I decided to come back up the other side of the platform in case the train arrived while walking along the platform. According to my watch I had 5 minutes based on the announcement. WRONG! I got up the stairs and there was the train. I tried boarding one of the doors right in front of me, but they were closed and wouldn’t open. Then Nicholas called me from the complete opposite end of the train. I sprinted down to the other end and boarded. I’m guessing the train was at least 100m long, which makes it the first time that I’ve sprinted a 100m at that pace in a long time. Apparently the train arrived just a minute after I left, which means it was ON TIME. Delphine and Nicholas held the train up by standing in the doorway five minutes. How could the announcer be so wrong?

We arrived in Venice to another beautiful day, sunny and warm. It made for the perfect tourist weather. Being a Sunday in December there were only Italians in the streets. Occasionally we came across a foreigner, but only occasionally. Venice is a fun city just to wander around and get lost in. Most streets are no wider than your arm spread and twist and turn their way through the city. The signs at important intersections are the easiest way to get between landmarks, and I can only imagine every summer tourist following those signs down narrow streets in the heat. It would be unbearable, and completely ruin the fun of it.

The star attraction in Venice, aside from the gondoliers, is piazza San Marco. The cathedral in the piazza is unique for Western European Christian architecture. As a crossroads in the ancient world between the east and west the cathedral was build in a Middle Eastern style. This gives it a unique appearance in an otherwise Italian looking city. The Ducal Palace also resides in the square and looks rather plain on the outside aside from the pattern of colored stones used for the walls. The interior on the other hand is worth the visit. With only 7 hours in Venice we skipped the palace in favor of a boat trip to Murano.

Murano is just like Venice except smaller and every shop sells Murano glass. I personally enjoyed the boat ride more, which also took us past the cemetery island. The wall around the island is impressive along with the white marble chapel at the corner of the island. Since only Venice’s wealthy could afford burial on the island I assume most of the tombstones and mausoleums are intricately carved works of art, which makes it a stop on the tourist route, but not for us.

In the evening a five hour train ride, which we had seat reservations for the first part to Milan, brought us back to Turin at 12:30am and very tired. Our perfect timing as exhibited throughout the trip had us exit the station as our bus pulled away from the stop. Twenty five minute walk home in 35 degree weather while exhausted. And that’s that.