Venice, Vedi, Vici

June 28, 2018

Venice, Vedi, Vici

Day 28,Wednesday, June 27

Another travel day. First we stroll along the Ljubljana River to get early morning – and unpeopled – snaps of thing we’ve seen on previous days. Maybe a woman on a bike here and there for local color, but mostly the basics: us, us, and more us. Amazing how Europe looks like San Diego with the same two mugs front and center. (Okay, no one says “mugs” any more.)

From there, it’s the inevitable breakfast buffet, checkout and a cab to the “Flixbus” station. The cabbie takes an obviously circuitous route, then delivers the bad news: it’ll cost us 3.3€. That’s less than the fare estimate at the hotel. We go nuts and tip the equivalent of $1.20. Rich Americans throwing their dollars around!

We have a three hour bus trip to Venice ahead. Well, three hours after the bus arrives an hour late. Locals and tourists alike seem to take this in stride even as it starts to rain. Just like Oregon. We’ve paid a premium for assigned seats and for some sort of ill-defined excess baggage allowance. Imagine our chagrin as we see our fellow bus riders loading their own luggage into the belly of the bus, some of them crawling inside to get their stuff to a safe spot. No concierge rushes forward to prepare a primo spot for our crappy luggage and we join in the frenzy, attempting to lift our 100 kilo bags over our heads to get the last available, wedging-in corner. Jeez.

Once rolling, however, the ride is smooth and comfortable, passing through Trieste, which looks gorgeous, all tile roofs in the sun, and on to Venezia, the Italian word for Venice. (Sad that they don’t know how to spell the name of their own town.) We know we’re in Italy because our driver honks angrily at other drivers, something no Norwegian, Bulgarian, Serbian or Romanian driver has done. To be fair, our guy was cut off, which seems to be a constant here.

Arriving at the Venezia airport, we take a pre-arranged (Thank you Scout, for the thousandth time on this voyage alone) cab to the vicinity of our hotel, the Moresco. The cabbie wears a black suit and tie and white shirt, another thing that says we’re in Italy and not somewhere else. Since there is no parking in Venice, he stops where he can and lugs most of our bags to our hotel. We tip and it’s more than $1.20. Thank the lord for people who smooth the way for ignorant foreigners!

At the Moresco, a small and not cheap “boutique” place, we are greeted and encouraged to relax in the garden with a glass of proseco. Why thank you, Italian person, we’ll do just that. Once up in our room, there’s another free bottle of proseco on ice for us. It doesn’t last long. The bellman – damn is he cute! – advises us that Happy Hour – and free food! – runs from 6:30 to 8:00. The drinks aren’t free, of course, but we’ll nurse them. We’ve already had our first gelato: yum and yum. When you visit Venice, this is the place to stay.

The Happy Hour freebies are enough for another meal, especially with even more proseco at 2.50€ per glass. Our server waxes philosophical about the merits of staying home versus seeing the world. He’s wrong, but who can argue? Someone who knows their way around the many, many small streets here can doubtless have a good life – at least until global warming floods the place. Low lying spots, like St Marks, are already flooded by moon tides during certain times of the year. One can get a drink and a newspaper in St. Marks in swim trunks during this – never mind the displaced rats.

We drag ourselves upstairs to our first floor (in Europe, it’s “ground floor,” then first, second, etc) bedroom to crash, ignoring the pleasant canal view. It’ll be there tomorrow.

Day 29, Thursday, June 28

Up early to wig-wag our way through many short and confusing streets to St. Marks, not currently under water, but under siege by Koreans posing for “destination” wedding photos. Gotta say, the men seem beaten into submission while the women seem unhappy that every nano-detail isn’t perfect. Hard to imagine that these brides will be fun to be married to, no matter how great they look in their perfect gowns. The one surrounded by pigeons in St. Marks seemed most unhappy. Chill honey, it’s only rats with wings (Note: saw one seagull carrying off the bloody remains of a pigeon for a snack. Hey, Korean grooms!: That’s you in that beak!)

If you want to go to St. Marks, go in early AM or late PM when the flood of tourists is at ebb tide so there’s no one there but you and the muggers. The light is good then and, if you’re lucky, you can watch seagulls devour smaller birds.

Our duty done (saw St. Mark’s: check), we wander back to the Moresco. (“Not all who wander are lost,” the poster says, but we were, numerous times, even with GPS.) The included breakfast isn’t epic like others we’ve gorged, but it’s pretty good, especially the thin-sliced Italian ham and custard-filled croissants.

This chore done, we wander back into town for the Italian version of a “free” tour, this one by Ricardo, a handsome fellow who leads us and 30 others to a number of lesser-known, but interesting, spots. He concludes by telling us where not to eat (at tourist-heavy places) and encourages us to “get lost.” That’s how to find where the locals eat, he says and, although relying on the sensibilities of “locals,” isn’t always good advice, we find a place with kittens romping around in it and American blues guitar music from the 1930s on the speakers (and the lowest toilet since “old” China). A liter of red wine is 13€ and a good match for big plates of pasta. Mange, mange! Ricardo also points out the “Jewish quarter”and the origin of the word “ghetto “ which had something to do with metal-working, evidently a speciality done by Jews in Venice at some point in time. There weren’t any gypsies around? Our visit to the quarter is, at least more positive than In other European Jewish places: There are restaurants, a museum, at least one shop and Chabbad guys eager to learn if Dave is in the tribe. Didn’t ask Scout. Maybe that’s a good thing. The shop we saw had a lively lady who made religious items out of Murano glass, a local product. Her sister painted other items by hand. Tourists who find the area have worked at it since there’s no glitz. Of course, even in Venice, Google conquers all.

Venice has the same population as Ljubljana, under 300,000, but without any tell-tale new buildings in the distance. Ricardo says the population is only 50,000 and shrinking by 1,000 per year because it’s too expensive to live in the city. Then there’s global warming, expected to raise the sea level by a meter within a hundred years. St Mark’s Square, where one can relax now in occasional waist-deep water, will be inundated all the time.

This is a town in denial. Many areas cannot be reached by car so the local idea of a truck is a boat delivering goods along the canals. Once off-loaded onto the shore, goods are hauled by hand cart to stores, restaurants, etc. Imagine the cost of a home remodeling project where everything is brought in by manual labor. It’s like New Orleans: no one wants to admit that the location isn’t suitable. Even Ricardo couldn’t admit that the weight of the buildings is more than the foundations – all under water to begin with – can support. Still, what can you do? Evacuate? Throw away billions in tourist dollars? Or wait and hope for the best, whatever that is.

As is, Venice is an invalid, every building seemingly a reflection of how life was at a time when a push cart was a viable means of moving merchandise. Some buildings are a few hundred years old, many are older. The typical “street” is essentially an alley linking other alleys. Efforts are made to keep things tidy, but it’s hard to avoid using the word “crumbling” to describe almost everything. St. Mark’s Square, aside from the armadas of pigeons, is dingy, the once-white marble going to a dirty grey. This being June, the city is overwhelmed with visitors bumping up and down the narrow alleys, clogging the bridges – and the only thing keeping the city alive.

We do not “get lost,” but we find an appealing lunch place (I.e., cheap wine), eat up and waddle back to the Moresco as the sky clouds over. It’s warm here, but not humid so far and - there being no other choice – it’s compact and a good walker’s town if one doesn’t mind wrong turns. Did we mention that street names can change after a block or two? Or that there may be no sign to tell you the name? It’s that kind of place. Everyone has their heads down, Smartphones in hand, hoping a disembodied voice will guide them. Sort of like a religion.

As pagans, we find that an afternoon napping cures most things – including the effects of a big, cheap wine lunch. Soon it will be Happy Hour at the Moresco so we’ll rise to eat and drink again. Hey, it’s Venice.

A few photos and perhaps a Google photo album