The Unexpected Vacation in Venice, Part #7

At our favorite deli we can get a huge slice of pizza for 1E or 2E with meat. They also have sandwiches, falafel, gyros, french-fries and whole chicken. We will be eating here for a lot less that sit down cloth napkin restaurant that took our credit card. We are most happy when eating, it seems.

In back of the deli under an open roof there are seats and tables. But most people walk and eat. Sit down restaurants with cover charge, bottle of water and pizza for both of us could add up to 29E or about $40US. The rate was $1.4US to 1E. I think I said that right. If you take the Euro price and multiplied it by 1.4, it gave us the US equivalent we were paying. We are learning so much.

At the train station we watched people getting their tickets from automated screens. Aub saw other kiosks and thought we should try them to get to Verona. She was right. The people who invited us to go with them had large tickets. The 1^st kiosks had small ones. We found one that people were using in English and watched them, then asked questions. When it was our turn we were almost finished and a lady behind us helped us finish up. “We all have to help each other,” she said. AMEN

We had devotions this am. Read from I Cor. 13, the love passage. We prayed for those at home who are probably more worried than we are. We listed the things we are thankful for.

I told Aubrey, this experience is going to test our problem solving skills, our patience, our intelligence and our faith. Sure enough, it has. She is a great problem solver: observant, keeps a cool head, goes with the flow. Her dad was very observant. Earl could show him something when working and Chris could anticipate which tool next. I see this same trait in Aubrey. But, life IS just a series of problem solving, isn’t it?

I’m using lots of pages I see. I hope we get home before the pages run out! Aub says we will.

We were ready to walk over to St Mark’s Square but our hotel adapter popped and blew the room lights. While waiting for the technician I decided to work the phones again. There are no changes for Thursday. Tuesday’s flights cancelled for sure and probably Wednesday’s.

We are hoping as airspace opens up, more flights will be put on.

It is too late now to walk to PSM. We will take the waterbus. It is 6.50E one way. Had we known, we could have bought a 3 day pass for 18E and “hop on-hop off” anywhere during that time.

The concert was great.  The room is the same dimensions as the room in which Vivaldi composed. The acoustics were outstanding.

Piazza San Marco is beautiful. Every sight is a picture. Venice night life seems to be around the Square. After the concert we moseyed back through the huge square. It is after dark now, but there are huge outdoor restaurants, each with its own little orchestra. People sit only if they are ordering. The square is surrounded by stunning architecture and so is a concert hall sound. People are sitting, strolling, dancing, eating ice cream…

When we got back to the waterbus the ticket counter was closed. The ticket stamper machine was out of order – so we just got on. No one checked tickets. The bus was full. We are learning their sign system. There is WaterBus 1 and WaterBus 2. They go to different places and stops, so you need to know which one to get on. We weren’t sure but I saw Ferrovia. I had seen that name near our hotel but didn’t know what it meant. It is the stop at the train station which is across the canal from our hotel. The FS stands for Ferrovia Station. As we pulled into our stop with the hotel in view, Aub looked at me, smiled and said, “We did it!”

Our two heads together must give us an IQ off the charts. We are doing more things together than we probably would risk alone.

Tuesday April 20

We stayed at breakfast a little too long and miscalculated the time to walk to the station for the 8:58 train. We must have missed by only a few minutes. (Trains and buses run ON TIME) So we went back to the hotel to finish breakfast and pick more brains of Americans. Jeanette from Berkley and I have coffee together nearly every morning, now, until her husband and Aub come down.
We tried the 10:00 train to Verona – got on. No one looked at our ticket, so I guess it is ok.

The country side is very flat. Houses are colors of faded yellow, pink, orange or tan, mostly tile roofs. Farmers are plowing fields. The climate here is pretty close to late May in Ohio. We’ve had sunny days, each day getting a little warmer. Today is our 1st day without sweaters.

I see hills to the right now. It looks like snow on the tops. Could that be the Alps?

Some are traveling with babies or young children. I have a teenager with me. She will be 15 in August. I have not heard a “Whatever”, or “I’m bored.” No sighs or eye-rolling. She has been a delightful traveling companion. The only comment she made when we got back to Venice, not knowing for how long, was, “What will we do all day”. I have forgotten, though, how much teenagers eat!

Arrived Verona, 12:30 after 21/2 hour train ride. We, of course, now did not have our traveling friends we thought we would and had not researched Verona. We couldn’t find maps or what to do. Found out later that you need to take a tour bus to see most of the city. But here we are. We walked around a park and national monument. Verona is apparently where Shakespeare wrote or was the setting for “Romeo and Juliet”.

Found a McDonald’s and got a sandwich and coffee ‘take away’ American style.

We had a late start from missing the 1st train. We walked for about 1-1/2 hours. It was nearing 3:00 when I thought we’d better get our tickets to go back. We had on recommendation gotten only 1 way because of not knowing how long we would be there.

Aub is great on these self serve ticket machines. She punches faster than I can read it, then I stick in my credit card. We make a good team.

We learned to look for Bin1, Bin2 or Bin3 to get the right platform. We got our ticket. When we asked someone to head us in the right direction he said, “Bin4”. We were early for the time on our ticket. A train was there, so we hopped on. “Wow, It’s early!” But, great, we are headed back.

After a few minutes I felt I needed to check. I asked a young lady across from us and showed her the ticket, “Venice, Venezia?”  She couldn’t speak English, but said, “No, no Milano!”

Milan!   Oops!

The lady spoke in Italian to others on the train and found a guy who could speak both languages. She explained our situation. When we got to the next station he recommended getting off (my thoughts exactly) and buying another ticket to avoid fines and fees. Evidently you DO have to have the ticket for the specific train you are on. We could have been fined for using our ticket this morning for a later trip. Tickets were 46E each way for 2.

When we realized our mistake Aub said “It’s OK, Grandma. We’ll get there”.

So here we are waiting in Peschiera Del Garda station for the 16:13(4:13pm) train back to Verona and points east – Venice specifically. There are yellow boxes near the trains to stamp and validate your ticket. If not stamped we are subject to fines and fees. So far no one has looked. I have heard that many places are understaffed because workers are stranded as a result of the ash cloud. So maybe there are just not enough people to check everything.

We are on a different kind of train going back to Venice. We asked 3 different people if this was the correct one. They just announced our stops so I know it has to be. But the other one had no announcements. You had to watch station signs. This one had way fewer stops and returned in 1-1/2 hours.

Oops! Aub thinks we are in 1st class. We just figured out the number system. We were to be in car 9. The train is not full so we just sat down. The regional ones aren’t. It’s air conditioned and there are little tables for computers. Aub has decided she wants pizza and ice cream for dinner.

We are almost there and no one has challenged our seats. If anyone did we were going to say, “Sorry, sorry, Scuzi, (scoozi), scuzi”, and move on. I said “Maybe we look like we belong here, not like riff raff.”
Aub said, “Not yet, but we will.” It’s been a long hot day.

Posted on March 3, 2011 - Filed Under Beach and Vacation Travel Tips and Help, Travel

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