Tuesday 7 July 1998

Slideshow Pictures

After leaving Caerano we headed towards Venice intending to stop at Treviso for lunch. We missed the turn off to Treviso and decided not to backtrack since we weren’t hungry, after feasting the night before, but to head straight for Venice. As we arrived at the outskirts of the city, police were directing traffic away from the Roma parking lot where we had intended to park overnight and ended up at an unpaved parking lot near a water bus (Vaporetto) station. Our luggage was quite heavy so we decided to take a water taxi instead of taking a Vaporetto, which left from the same dock.

The return fare to Hotel Bonvecchiati was 220,000 lire or approximately $200 CAN. They didn’t accept credit cards and we only had 150,000 lire and 50 Deutchmarks which in total was approximately $180 CAN. The vendor, after some quick calculation, grabbed the cash out of my hand and called the driver to give us a hand with the luggage. We were on the water taxi heading for Venice.

The taxi driver headed straight for the hotel. However, there was construction going on in one of the side canals, and he had to backup, and give us a scenic tour under the Realto bridge and through some other of the canals, all the while avoiding gondolas.

The boat was not one of the newer ones and the seats were quite worn, so Idecided to put one of my feet on the seat to be able to take a better picture of some of the sights. I was quickly reprimanded by the driver.

The water taxi dropped us off at the water entrance of the hotel, and the driver helped to bring the luggage inside the foyer which was quite magnificent. We checked in, and after looking around the room and freshening up, went directly to the Piazza di San Marco.

I had been in Venice previously and had no trouble navigating. Rachel was immediately befriended by a million pigeons, who like the locals, know a tourist when they see one. After buying corn for them from a vendor on the piazza, some of the pigeons even sat on her head.

She stood very still, and I was hoping the pigeons would think she was a statue, and do what pidgeons do. Wishes don’t always come true "D$$#%$n".

After looking around the piazza, we decided to tour the cathedral, but because Rachel was wearing shorts we weren’t allowed in. So we headed back to the hotel to have a late lunch-early dinner.

 After dinner, we decided to look around and maybe go for a gondola ride. The price of a gondola ride which was over 100,000 lire $90 CAN persuade us to be a bit more physically fit, and walk. Besides, the taxi we had taken to the hotel, had to make so many detours that we had been on most of the canals anyway. On our walk Rita saw some African-Italians selling backpack purses, and really admired their wares. We went over to Santa Maria della Salute and after rounding the bend decided to stop for refreshments. Rachel had a Coke while we had beers.

Stopped at a shop where Rachel and Rita bought earrings. The weather was overcast.

On our way back we stopped at a Pizzeria in the square, where The Afro-Italians had been. You would think Italians make great pizza. Wrong. Anyhow the wine was good.

As we left the pizzeria Rita’s eyes were caught by the backpack purses. The Afro-Italian peddler could hardly wait till she got there. Rita asked for the price and was told that the purse cost 300,000 lire.

After the salesperson guaranteed that the purses were genuine leather, Rita was really excited. But as I was dragging her away the vendor asked how much money we had. I told him 50,000 lire, at which he whispered in our ear that he was willing to part with the purse, only on condition, that we wouldn’t tell anybody that we had ripped him off. Well, we weren’t going to tell anybody, so we made the deal. We parted with the 50,000 lire and felt good about it. Rita was absolutely thrilled with her acquisition. When we arrived back at the hotel we took a closer look at the purse and discovered that it was more valuable than the vendor had thought. It was a backpack purse, made from Jurassic era leather from the soft underbelly of a Naugahydous Rex, softened by millions of years of tanning underground, and finally converted by a chemical genius back to leather. But since the English language has evolved through those millions of years, in today’s vernacular it is simply called plastic.

We decided to go for a walk later on in the evening to purchase Rachel some pop and us some wine.

 We came across a small shop that was run by Asian-Italians. There were leather purses all over the place. So Rita acquired a real leather purse for 110,000 lire. On our way back to the hotel we stopped at the Realto bridge and took some photographs, then back to the hotel 160,000 lire poorer, and with two backpack purses.

After consuming the bottle of wine, we decided that we had really taken the locals. Since we had negotiated the plastic purse price down from 300,000 to 50,000 lire (a saving of 250,000) and only spent 110,000 on the real leather. Hey, we were 140,000 lire ahead. To this day we can’t figure out how those poor suckers in Venice can survive. We think they need a good math teacher!

I woke up early and went back to the piazza to take sunrise photographs. The only people there at that time were the cleaners and an artist who situated himself at the west end of the piazza. It was high tide and the piazza was under 2 inches (5cm) of water.

After making-up we went for breakfast at the hotel and then we were off to see the cathedral and the Palazzo Ducale.

At the cathedral we stood in line and after a while it began to rain. We started a conversation with a Chinese-Australian couple, who were standing in line in front of us, with their two daughters. They gave us an umbrella, with a broken spoke, so we were able to stay fairly dry. When we finally made it into the cathedral the couple had trouble finding their money, and since they had given us the broken umbrella, we thought it was fair that we pay for their admission. Later in the cathedral the lady found money in her purse and insisted on paying us back.

We had a quick tour of the Palazzo Ducale and then back to the hotel.

Checked out, 330,000 Lira, $273 CAN. Called the water taxi and it arrived just a few minutes after we had transported our luggage to the lobby. The same driver who had taken us to the hotel the day before gave us a hand in loading the luggage into the boat from the water door.

On our way back to the parking lot we ran into a traffic jam of gondolas.

We stopped under a low bridge and the boat kept hitting the side of the bridge. The driver was trying to hold the boat steady and he did manage in front, but the back was still getting banged, so I assisted, and the drivers attitude changed. He became a little more friendly, although still quite reserved by Italian standards.

Drove towards the Austrian border and decided to have lunch in Tarvisio, on the Italian side of the border. I had been there on a previous European vacation in 1974.

Then off to spend our remaining liras at a small shop that sold small liquor bottles. Tarvisio is a few kilometers inside Italy, where the Austrian and Slovenian borders meet. Thought about going through Slovenia to Preding, but the car insurance didn't cover Slovenia, so decided to go straight to Austria. We crossed the border into Austria and were off to find Preding, where I had lived for three months, as a refugee, after escaping from Hungary in 1956, after the Hungarian Revolution. This was the only night that we hadn’t reserved a hotel.