TRAVEL ALPHABET

The A-Z of My Favourite Travel Destinations — Venice

Vevey and Vals were in the running

I’ve been thinking about writing my V story for a couple of weeks, but it’s the silly season and I’ve been socialising. When I’m not socialising, I’ve been babysitting. As chance would have it, the second time I visited Venice came up on my Facebook memories today. Here’s the story of my first trip to Venice.

The second time wasn’t in our planned itinerary. Last minute, Keeley asks me, “Can we go to Venice?” She was driving from Ljubljana, Slovenia to Calolziocorte in the Lake Como area of Italy. It was only a small diversion to Venice. I loved Venice and I hoped Keeley would too. It was December so I was hoping we would get accommodation and there wouldn’t be crowds. To make it easier for myself, I booked the same accommodation as last time and hoped like hell I remembered the way. If you haven’t been lost in Venice at least once, you’re a liar. 😜

I had researched parking at the Marco Polo airport and had found a carpark that charged only 4.80 euros per day. Bargain! We put our day packs on and headed to the Vaporetti terminal where we purchased tickets for the water-bus, and followed the signs until we reached the harbour. As we were boarding the boat, the ticket officer asked where we were going, to which Keeley quickly replied “Venice.” I laughed, “San Marco. Grazie.”

After what seemed like hours, we arrived at San Marco. It seemed like hours because, before each stop, I’d say to Keeley, “I think this is it!” because I’d see a tower! Do you know how many towers there are in Venice?

We walked across the square, and down the alley to the San Zulian Hotel. I was proud of myself for not getting lost. We dumped our backpacks in our room and headed out to find some lunner ( combined lunch and dinner) as it was now after 3.30 pm. Purely by chance, we stumbled onto one of the restaurants I’d eaten at 3 years ago! I ordered the 3-course special for 13.50 euros while Keeley ordered bruschetta and gnocci, plus a litre of house red. Not hungry anymore, we returned to our room to don some warmer clothes to go out.

Lost in Venice at night

I was so proud of my navigational skills I was certain I could find my way to the Teatro San Gallo where, 3 years ago, Stacey and I saw the show Venezia, showing the 1000-year history of Venice.

I thought I knew where it was — just up the end of the square and to the right. Well, I went one alley too far and became totally, completely and utterly lost. I think we even ended up on another island; we crossed enough bridges anyway! We finally found our way back to San Marco and asked a policeman the way to Teatro San Gallo (I’d remembered the name of the theatre, thank goodness!) He gave us explicit directions, and we found it easily. It was literally steps away from the square!

Venezia — the play

We were welcomed into the foyer, and I asked for 2 tickets - 78 euro! I almost had an apoplectic fit — I’m sure they weren’t this expensive last time I was here. I told the receptionist I thought they were 12 euros three years ago, to which she replied, “You’ve been here before?”

Apparently, that entitled us to an 18 euro discount! Guess what a bottle of prosecco costs? Yep, 18 euro. We sat down with our glasses and heard some Aussie voices so talked to the young couple from Sydney for half an hour until the play started. They are travelling on their own round Europe, just booking as they go. They got a hotel room for 3 nights for less than ours cost for 2!

Entertaining as well as informative. The word “bank” comes from the moneylenders who used to sit on the benches, “bancos”, on the bridges, in particular the Rialto Bridge. The word “carnevale” comes from carne- meat and vale- goodbye, goodbye to meat at the start of Lent. Also, the lion is a symbol of Venice, I’ve never noticed them before, but there are 2,436 of them!

The Doge’s Palace

After a sumptuous breakfast ( I bet that Aussie couple didn’t get a breakfast like this!), we were off to the Doge’s Palace — my favourite place in Venice. I managed to get a 6 euro senior’s discount — I must look very old today!

We walked through room upon room of opulence and splendour that was on show to visiting royalty and dignitaries, while the Doge himself lived very frugally in apartments that are closed off to the public unless you do the secret itineraries tour which I did last time but we were short on time and I still wanted to show Keeley Murano.

Murano — a glass lover’s paradise

We walked the whole length of the canal street looking in at least twenty shops and still didn’t spend a thing. We did, however, meet up with the Aussie couple from the theatre last night,who recognized us as they were walking past a shop. Talk about small world! We chatted for a while.

What had they done this morning? Just been looking for accommodation in Rome and booking an apartment for 3 days. That’s one disadvantage of booking as you go! We had eaten a delicious breakfast and walked through the entire Doge’s Palace including walking over the Bridge of Sighs to the prison cells.

We saw a sign for takeaway fish and chips, and we thought we’d save money by not having a sit-down meal. Not so- the “fish” and chips were 20 euros! The “fish” was squid and baby octopus, but we were HUNGRY!

Back to the serious business of glass shopping! We wound up buying from 4 different shops and I spent 9 euro more today than I did 3 years ago. It was my big shopping day then, and was today too! I love this place! I didn’t dare add up my purchases but I bought beautiful jewellery not only for myself but for my daughters and niece too.

Back to the boat! Just as I’m about to board, I noticed I didn’t have my hiking pole for support so back I went, up the long street, to find it. Of course, I left it in the second last shop! We missed that boat.

After a nap, we were off to dinner at our favourite and cheap little Italian restaurant just round the corner from us in San Zulian square. We shared a pasta with basil, pinenuts and garlic- delish! And then had pizza. We should have shared one as neither of us could eat all of it. We did however polish off a litre of red.

A little anecdote from our dinner…

“Three Aussies from the Gold Coast sat at the table beside ours, and we started up a lively conversation, which lasted right through dinner. Two of them were very chatty and great travellers with funny stories, the third one barely said a word. They were all 20 (oh to be young, even Keeley felt old!) and two of them were at uni studying to be teachers. Harry was the history/geography teacher so we had a lot in common. Nathan was the Keeley sort of traveller (he loves Harry Potter for example and drove to a town in Switzerland just because it had the same name as something in Harry Potter!)”

On the way to dinner, I was dragging myself along — amazing how some scintillating conversation with fellow travellers (Keeley asks is she not scintillating enough?) can pick one up — I was all ready for a night on the town with them — but alas, I had to return to the theatre as I left my scarf there last night! Hopeless!

I didn’t find my scarf, but Keeley found a mask she loved and since she now knew the history of the masks in Venice, I bought one for her. She tried on a few and we fooled around and took some photos. The girl gave me a discount because I was at the show last night! This place is discount heaven!

I love Venice!

PS I found my scarf! I had left it in our room… you can’t take me anywhere…but we would never have found the masks if we hadn’t gone back to the theatre. Serendipitous?

I love Simona Toma’s story of her visit to Venice.

Mary Louisa Cappelli, MFA, JD, PhD writes and interesting story about the Venice Film Festival.

Catherine Dunn fell in love with Venice too — from the canals.

Have you read Dan Carlson | Meandering Naturist’s latest A-Z story — C is for Charco del Palo?

Or Jerry Dwyer’s latest H story- Holywood?

Or Darren Weir’s latest K story — Kathmandu?