Getting to Venice

Thursday, 9/28/17
I slept off and on, probably anticipating an early start to the morning. I got up shortly after 7am while Rob enjoyed laying down for a few more precious moments.  After we showered and packed up the majority of our gear we had coffee, tea, and breakfast. While we packed up completely, Valentina came out and started her day. She had offered to drive us to the bus stop in the morning which was extremely kind of her. Around 0910 we piled in her small car and she drove us a few minutes uphill to the bus stop that would bring us back to Rimini. We waited about 5 minutes for the bus to arrive and then hopped on and admired the scenery on our way down towards the coast.

View of the towers from the bus stop.

A view of one tower from the bus ride. It's really hard to show how high up it is.

​Once we were back in Rimini, we had about an hour and 20 minutes before we needed to catch our first train of the day so we decided to sit down at a café and get a couple cappuccinos and chocolate croissants. These were satisfactory but did not compare to the croissants we had at Café Matteo in Corniglia. We settled our tab and decided to grab a bottle of wine for the train ride. Our first leg would take us to Bologna. First class for this portion! Because it’s our honeymoon. And it was only one additional euro. The ride to Bologna was only 1 hour and 15 minutes but I think we really graced the first class carriage with our backpacks and drinking wine straight out of the bottle. We did America proud with our representation.

Another training day.

​We transferred at Bologna to another train about 20 minutes later. This train ride was pretty uneventful. It took us the rest of the way to Venice, which will be our last stop on this trip. We hopped off at the end of the line, and followed the crowd towards the waterfront. Here, we bought tickets for water taxis AKA boats AKA vaporettos. Water taxi is actually probably inaccurate, because there are specifically taxis, but what we rode was more like a city bus that floats. Anyways. We rode the 4.2 to Fondamente Nove and got off. We tried to figure out where we were supposed to be, and by now we were about 15 minutes late. We eventually got our bearings on the map on Mandy’s phone, and we devised a route to our AirBnB. We felt bad we kept our host waiting outside to hand us keys, but we got there as quickly as we could! We met with Manuela on top of a little bridge over a canal. She knew it was us when we approached, and introduced herself before leading us inside. We walked all the way up to the attic, where she showed us our room. It’s lovely, and perfect for Mandy because the ceilings are only 3 feet high in spots.

First look at Venice.

The actual water taxis are beautiful wood boats.

Our attic accommodations.

​We people-watched out the windows for few minutes, and then headed back out in search of food because we were both getting hungry. We were in that sweet spot of the Italian afternoon where you can only purchase the morning’s leftover pastries, or get “real” food at certain places that remain open. You just have to know where they are apparently, because a restaurant with its doors open and employees milling about inside between 2pm and 7pm is more than likely closed. You may walk right in, and even take a seat. If you are lucky, they will tell you to leave, or that they’re closed. More likely, they will just ignore you, which is fine, it’s just disorienting if you don’t know. Anyways, we found a bread with a slice of prosciutto and a thick layer of cheese that I devoured quickly, to take the edge off. It was one of the better quick-afternoon-bites I’ve had. We forged ahead, and found a restaurant at random that had several guests eating outside, so we joined them. We ordered a couple drinks before inquiring about the food status. We got lucky; Osteria Da Nico doesn’t close the kitchen for the afternoon. We perused the menu, and opted to just get a plate of meats and cheese to share. It was delicious, the smoked prosciutto was a favorite. We might have stuck around, but it was starting to get a little chilly, so we wanted to put on warmer clothes before dinner.

​We went back to our room real quick to change, and set back out right around 7, with confidence that most places would be operational. We picked the first place which was literally the first floor of the building we were staying in, so we would have a short drive home after. We opted to split a gorgospeck pizza (gorgonzola and speck, which is bacon). And we had a couple of adult beverages; a Long Island and a mojito. The pizza was really good, but afterwards we were stuffed. We asked for the check, and we were instead brought a couple shots of limoncello. We drank them, obviously, not sure if we were supposed to sip or shoot them. Next, a waiter asked if we’d like to see a dessert menu, which we accepted, although we had no intention of getting any. We were simply curious. When the waiter returned, we requested the check, which he seemed reluctant to provide. After another 10 minutes or so, it finally arrived. We suspect they tried to liquor us up to get us to buy more stuff. It almost worked, but not quite. We paid our tab, and climbed back upstairs to our room so we could relax. Eventually, we fell asleep.