Time to Say Goodbye

I was vey excited to be heading to Venice. It's unlike any place on earth. I don't care how many canals any other city may have (Amsterdam, tip your hat in recognition), nothing comes close to Venice.

I had been to Venice before, however that had been merely a daytrip from Tuscany. This time around, I had booked two glorious nights in this fantastic place (thanks to a reccomendation from a Rick Steves' book). I had always thought Venice to be incredibly expensive. I was pleasantly surprised, not just from the price of our room, but from everything else we encountered along the way.

Chris had never been before. I was secretly thrilled to witness his reaction to it. Crossing over the lagoon, we could feel we were entering a whole new world—a world where cars and other motor vehicles did not exist. We stepped out of the main train station and were immediately hit with the charm that is uniquely Venice. The Grand Canal was before us; the instant bustle of a place you can only imagine from the movies.

On our way to the hotel, we noticed the abundance of take-away food, and were pleased to discover that Venice was well within range of our backpacker budget. Pizza was readily assessible and cheap. They sold it in big slices, like the way they do in New York City.

Our hotel was down a back alley, not far from the main sites. Rick Steves' did well in his recommendation. We were upgraded to a room with its own bathroom. Sure it was located across the hallway from reception, and the guy out there could probably hear everything going on in our room (we were listening to music videos really loud at one point—cheesy 80s videos, the best kind), but it was more than sufficient.

It's incredibly easy to get lost in Venice. It actually doesn't matter if you do. Eventually there will be a sign that points in the direction of the Rialto or San Marco. Those are the biggest attractions of the island. The Rialto is the main bridge over the Grand Canal. There are shops on both sides, and three sets of stairs crossing over (take that Ponte Vecchio!) San Marco is the main square, boosting St. Mark's Cathedral, the Doge's Palace and the oldest digital clock in the world. The square is packed with tourists and pigeons. Just around the corner is the Bridge of Sighs (more impressive by name than it is in appearance). I told Chris after seeing these main sights we could go anywhere in Venice. Afterall, the real main attraction of Venice is Venice itself, its backstreets, mulitple bridges and of course, the canals.

You cannot lose with Venice. You will win everytime. Even though it's ultra-touristy, and smells of sewers, and barely has any real residents left on it. It's a living piece of history. It's not a themepark; doesn't even come close to feeling like one. The city is steadily sinking back into the lagoon. If sea levels rise, Venice will most certainly be gone. Venice Las Vegas doesn't come close to the experience, not even with the gondola rides. Visit Venice, that is all I can say.

Chris and I had walked ourselves into nap-mode. We made our way back to the hotel. On our way, walking past many hawkers and street performers, we rounded a building and were hit full force with the voice of an opera singer. I believed it to be someone playing a CD, but there in a tiny square was an actual man singing. It stopped us dead in our tracks. It had stopped other people as well, and we all just stood there staring unbelievably. This man was so good. It's not every day a voice can stop you like that, make you forget what you were doing.

He was singing “Ave Maria.” He wouldn't make eye contact. He almost looked bashful. as if he didn't want people looking at him. Occassionally he would acknowledge someone, if money was dropped into his box. He'd give them a deep bow, still not making eye contact. He was very humble, even with this amazing voice. What a wonderful man.

After our nap we headed back out into the streets. It was night now, and most of the tourists had left (most of them our daytrippers, arriving and leaving by boat). We had Venice largely to ourselves. Indeed Venice is very different at night. The backstreets are dark and you can hear water lapping everywhere. You feel like you're a character in some movie, slinking through the streets, walking towards or away from something exciting. This may sound dangerous, but there wasn't that feel to it at all. Venice felt very safe at night. Maybe the pickpocketers are out during the day, but we found no shady characters in those alleyways, just mostly venders closing up for the night or resteraunteers.

We sat in San Marco Square, amazed at how deserted it was. The tide was coming in and bubbling up through manholes throughout the square. There were few patrons sitting at the restaurants that lined the square, nonetheless, the bands continued to play. There was a band on one side playing classical movie pieces such as 'Star Wars' and 'ET'. On the other side was jazz. We got a free show, considering we didn't eat at these expensive restaurants. Rather we grabbed some pizza on one of the back alleys; more of those monster slices. It was a good night.

Killing Time

Our train the next day was to leave at 11:30 p.m. That meant we had a whole day to kill. I'd like to tell you we filled it doing amazing things, but mostly we just slept in the park. We hung out at McDonalds for a good portion of the day, taking advantage of the free wifi. We stayed in one place as long as we could, just to stretch the time out. I can say with assurance that I have seen Venice. I think we covered close to every inch of it.

We were fortunate with the weather. It was blue skies the whole day. It was the perfect kind of day to kill time in. Towards the end of the afternoon, as we were heading back towards the hotel to reclaim our bags, we spotted the opera man in the same square we had seen him the day before. It looked like he was setting up, so Chris and I lingered, hoping he would do another performance. We lingered a very long time, trying not to make it obvious we were there for him. Finally he started his music, and started pacing. He looked so nervous. He let a whole song go by without singing one note. We were wondering if he had stage fright. We looked away, letting him do his thing without us watching. Finally it appeared he had built up the courage, and out he came with “Sole Mio.” It was the same kind of goosebumps we had felt the day before. His voice just filled the entire square. Again people were stopping in their tracks as they walked past. I loved watching the reactions on people's faces when his voice hit them. With all the street performers in Venice, none came close to grabbing attention like this opera singer.

A few songs later, we moved closer to him, sitting on the base of a fountain. He had had his eyes downcast in that humble way of his, so it kind of threw us for him to look in our direction and announce “Andrea Bocelli.” To my utter delight, the notes to “Time to Say Goodbye” began to play on his iPod. This to me is the quintessential escape-to-Italy song. He sang it perfectly, building as the music built, bringing it home at the very end. It was almost as if he was singing it for us. Maybe it was presumptious to think that, but at the end he adressed us again, and said “For you, your favourite song” and began to sing “Ave Maria.” He had remembered us from the day before. That made us feel special, and we tipped him greatly. We even went up to shake his hand. He acknowledged that he had seen us yesterday. He was a wonderful man. I hope anyone who reads this blog and goes to Venice seeks out the opera man. He seems to sing late in the afternoon, in a tiny square just down the road from the only McDonalds in town. I hope he might have the same effect on you as he had on us.

The Overnight Train

We were actually looking forward to our accommodation for the night. In an attempt to save money, we booked seats on the overnight train from Venice to Munich. We didn't even bother to book sleepers (if it was a German train, the seats had to be first-class anyway. That was our thinking). After we had collected our bags from the hotel, we headed down the street towards the station. It had started raining, and the street was slick in the darkness. We had arrived super early at the station, having several hours to wait it out. In that time Chris made friends with a lame pigeon. The poor pigeon had a club foot, and was just hobbling about. We tried to gain its trust by holding out Altoids (we were to find out that pigeons don't care much for Altoids). Then the poor pigeon fell asleep near our feet, and we were very near wanting to fall asleep ourselves. I went outside for some fresh air and viewed Venice for the last time. The view of the Grand Canal, even in the dark, is amazing. Oh I do love Venice.

The train had pulled in an hour early. We climbed aboard to claim our seats. It was the dreaded cabin-type train (which means there are six seats put together in enclosed sections). This was the kind of train we had rode with that sleeping Italian family, and the intimicy with strangers is too great for my liking. Plus the train was rickity and smelled. Where was the German engineering I had been hearing about? As it turned out, we were lucky because no one joined us in our cabin. There were people around us, but we closed the curtains to our section, switched off the light, and tried to get some sleep.

We were first visited by a ticket man, who flipped the light on without apology. We handed our tickets over, and to be honest, we thought that would be it. We laid out, spreading ourselves across the seats, and planned on sleeping straight to Munich.

As if. At every stop, a ticket man would go through the carriages. Sure the stops weren't frequent, maybe every hour or two. But when the train would stop, it would stop for good. The air in the cabin would shut off and you could clearly hear the bangings of doors and whatnot as more people boarded the train. It was a huge commotion every time the train stopped. Some of the stops were about an hour long, and they would add carriages to the train which meant lots of noise from the outside; clanking and grinding and thumping. At first we didn't know what was going on, it was so loud. It sounded like they were disassembling the train. We met people out in the hallway who said this was normal, and was going to be happening throughout the night. To me this was unbelievable. I had thought the night train was for sleeping. Silly me.

Chris and I slept in increments, between stops and between ticket checks. We also had to deal with passport patrol, the officials having no qualms in waking us, flipping on the light and staring down at us scarily. This whole overnight train was a nightmare to me. It was hard to know what was going on, and with German being spoken on this rickity old train, it very much seemed that the SS were onboard and ready to find us and torture us in some way. In the wee hours of the night in an unfamiliar place, such thoughts come easily.

We had managed to sleep a few hours at a time. The ticket man had come, and so had yet another passport patrol. We thought we were good for awhile. But then all of a sudden the light comes blaring down at us and a crazy German woman was thrown in with us, thanks to the ticket man. This woman was ranting in German. She clearly had been drinking. It didn't take any knowledge of German to understand that she was raving mad. Thanks ticket man!

We then knew any chances of further sleep were gone. Chris and I sat up and tried to move as far away from the crazy lady as possible. She was still talking to herself. At one point she turned to Chris and tried to extend her rant to him. Chris apologized with his hands and said "English." He may as well have been telling her he had worms. She looked at him disgustingly and shook her head. I had to laugh out loud. This was all too funny.

After awhile I squeezed past the crazy lady (who had fallen into some kind of drunk slump) to visit the bathroom. There I discovered two things: it was getting light outside, and we were now in the Alps. The combination of the early morning light and the dramatic scenery cleared my head ever so slightly. When I got back to our cabin, I pulled the drapes open and tugged down the window. The air was fresh and the mountains were snow-capped and magnificient. We were in a whole new world now.  Soon we would be rolling over the German border (we were still in Austria) and into Bavaria. This section of the trip would be completely new to me. I was now excited for schnitzel and lederhosen. The overnight train had been shockingly bad, but we had made it, crazy lady and all.