Venice. Venice is SO kool! It is unlike any other city I have ever seen and the way of life there is truly unique. Venice is actually very small, we walked the whole island the few days we were there. Apparently real estate in Venice itself is extremely pricey, so many people live in the areas surrounding Venice and commute to work everyday. The city is like a maze. The streets intertwine in no order in particular, and there are dead ends everywhere. By dead ends I mean the narrow streets end and the canals begin! As soon as we get off our train and exit the station, there are several water busses (vaporetti) lined up waiting to take people where they need to go via the Grand Canal. We hop on the # 1 and sail to our stop at San Angelo. Pretty freakin' kool I think! We also discovered that many of the streets in Venice are not labeled, or what they are labeled are not actually what they are called. This is a very efficient system, no? I'll let you all to use your imaginations to think about how Jeni and I found our way to our hostel at 10:00 at night... We swore we had booked an eight bed dorm and, upon checking in, Jeni asks if our room is full. Oh yes! It's all full, very full...we are told. We are escorted to our own private room with ensuite and fresh towels. Nice surprise! We don't remember booking that but it worked out to be no more money, awesome! That evening, we met an Aussie couple (surprise, surprise) in our hostel who were very friendly and quite entertaining. They asked us if we all wanted to go in on trying to get a gondola ride together the next day. Jeni and I were in! Of course, it is the thing to do in Venice, but a typical 50 minute ride can cost up to € 150 and there was no way Jeni and I were going to split that ourselves. We were supposed to meet up with the Aussies (Craig and Amanda) the next morning at breakfast, we agreed on 8:30 am. The hostel breakfast was € 5 and we had to travel about 15 minutes by foot/traghetti to get to the restaurant. Traghetti's are very neat. They are small gondolas that transport people across the canals for € 0.50. Otherwise, there are only 3 bridges in Venice where you can cross the canal. The Aussies were an hour late and didn't show up until 9:30...how nice of them. Jeni and I were just leaving when they rushed in and apologized that they were late. Ahh well. After breakfast, the four of us marched over to Piazza San Marco, which is the largest and most central square in Venice, to bargain our way to an € 80 gondola ride, split four ways. This was fun. When we first started approaching the gondoliers, they simply scoffed at our asking price. You know how this goes: you say your price...they make you feel like you are nothing but a cheap tourist...you tell them they are doing this to fool you and you WILL get your asking price...they assure you you will never get what you want. Back and forth, back and forth. We finally found a gondolier that would take us on the route we wanted to see but for no less than € 120. € 120!? Too much, that's € 30 per person...we only wanted to spend € 20 each. Jeni, ah Jeni, she was super clever that day. She asked our gondolier that, if we found 2 more people to come with us, could we still have the ride for € 120, but split between 6 people? "Sure," said the gondolier, "but you will never find two more people. No one comes in groups of two, and if they do, they are lovers. They wouldn't want to go with the four of you. You can try, but you will have no success." I call someone's B.S.! Go Jeni, go! By this point in time we were getting a bit desperate. We had been bargaining with several people for almost 45 minutes and we just wanted to get on a freakin' gondola. Well, us girls wanted to and Craig was more enjoying the thrill of bargaining and would not give up. Also, very heavy storm clouds were rolling in and sprinkles of rain were beginning to fall. Jeni walks up to the first two people she sees, two girls who were also from Australia, and asks if they wanted to join the four of us on a lovely gondola ride...one hour for € 20 per person. Of course they did! And the gondolier was stewing. He was so annoyed that we were successful at getting two more people to join the group right off the bat. As we departed the port, excited for our 50 minute canal tour, the sky started to spit. Within minutes, we were caught in a complete down pour of rain that ended up lasting most of the day! However, the gondola ride ended up being really great and all of us laughed non-stop the whole ride...we thought it was funny that we spent all that time bargaining and now we were all stuck on a boat getting soaked...and the gondolier was not too pleased either.
J-Sak and I spent the rest of our time in Venice dodging the rain, walking the streets of Venice with no map in hand (it wouldn't have helped us anyways) and checking out the unique shops. I didn't know this, but Venice is know for its glass blowing and glass art. There are many kool art stores that sell nothing but Venetian glass art...some very nice stuff! I also discovered the most delicious bruschetta in a small cafe in Venice...had it everyday for lunch. Also, the last day were were in Venice, we saw maintenance workers setting up raised sidewalks all over the city and we wondered if they were expecting flooding. We left Venice in the late afternoon of November the 5th, and by that evening, the streets of Venice had flooded...we watched this on the news the next day in Cinque Terre. Dodged a big one!! Our travels from Venice took us to Cinque Terre on the northwest coast of Italy. We had to take a train from Venice to Milan, then Milan to La Spezia, and lastly La Spezia to Riomaggiore. Riomaggiore is the southern most village of the five Cinque Terre villages and was where our "base camp" was for the next couple of days.
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