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Europe 1997

Europe 1997 Day 10: Florence to Venice

Church of San Giorgio Maggiore as seen from near Piazza San Marco

Sunday April 13, 1997

Was I awake? Where am I? I am not sure, but I have this foggy recollection of checking out of a hotel at around 9:15am and departing for a train station. It also seems that we had to catch a 10:07am train, but when we found out that we would have to change in Bologna, we decided to wait until the 11:18 to Venice. Hmm I guess I was awake after all. We had some Florence McDonald’s and headed off to Venice.

Speeding through the Italian countryside

From what I recall, the train ride was through some great scenery. We were in a little cabin with some guy who didn’t speak English. I think we scared him off, because he got up halfway to Venice and never returned. The ticket lady informed us that we had to change trains in Mirenze to go to Venice. Ugh! The rest of the train was uneventful because I slept most of the way. Though I am not sure I ever woke up this day. So maybe the day began when we neared the Mirenze train station.

We arrived in Mirenze and the great shuffle began. We looked for the Venice train and saw Dick and Jeanette from NY running like crazy and crossing the tracks (not actually permitted by the station police, but they didn’t see them). Dick and Jeanette made it on the train that was leaving. We were not so lucky. After having to cross over and under tracks, we waited about 30 minutes before the next train to Venice showed up.

Canals in Venice

Once in Venice, I saw a copy of the Gondola lamp that I received after my grandfather died that was given to him by a cousin who must have bought it at the train station. (Geez, I better get Chuck something before I go!) We then hopped the Venetian equivalent of a bus that took us over to St. Marcos Square (after no less than 13 stops). We found a sucker of a porter who took our bags to the hotel. Hmm I guess we were the suckers. It cost us like 40,000 Lire.

Gondolas on the canals of Venice
Piazza San Marco with the Campanile di San Marco and the Basilica in the background

After a brief rest (Maybe this is when I actually woke up – though we didn’t stop for long because we were all dead tired, but wanted to see Venice before the sun went down), we walked around the square and did some shopping. This lady from Boston was wearing new Doc Martens and showed me where to get them via some awful directions. After several twists and turns in the labyrinth of passageways, we found it. They weren’t very cheap (around 90 bucks), but they were still cheaper than in the stated. I also found another killer soccer jersey that was again a) way cool, and b) not very cheap. It had some groovy colors in it though.

We had dinner at the Grotta restaurant. I managed in one sitting to eat Spaghetti, Meatballs, and a Pizza! On the way back to the hotel, mom got steam-rolled again into buying yet another bag, She loudly complained back to the hotel until Gary offered to take it off her hands and give it to a relative. We chuckled about some of the highlights of the trip, and Mom groaned about her foot.

We have to wake up at the UNGODLY hour of 4am to catch out water taxi back to the train station to go back home. We had a great time chuckling in the room and I took a picture of Mom’s ankle.