Finding Venice: Part One
Our first hour in Italy, Adam and I were hopelessly lost on the canals of Venice.
Our elegant, mustachioed vaporetto water taxi driver found the Castello neighborhood for our little hotel, Ca’ Bauta, but from there — nothing. He called out to strangers on land for help, but was answered only with furrowed brows and regretful smiles. As though literally gliding back into the Renaissance, our cell phones refused to work.
Idling underneath bridge after bridge, Adam and I turned our faces up to a warm October breeze and marveled at intricate carved-stone buildings that seemed to float on both water and hope.
Bursting our reverie, the driver gave up and deposited us, halfheartedly, back at the first dock we’d tried. He shrugged and said:
“Benvenuto a Venezia…Is a maze, yes?”
Saddled with rolling luggage in a walking city full of bridges with steps, we trundled through cobbled back alleys masquerading as streets. Chuckling turned to quiet politeness and then silent blame. Our hard-won Berlitz Italian helped us charm a gray and shuffling old couple in earth-colored kerchiefs and sensible shoes…but nothing and no one could help us find our bed.
Then suddenly, on the sharp edge of giving up, we were charmed by a glimpse of a Carnevale mask shop, the first we’d ever seen. In the window were stark faces and swirling suns, gold, blue and red, their wands festooned with ribbons and bells. Just above hung a tiny sign with the street name of our hotel.
Sweet sakes alive, we’d be able to put our luggage down, change the clothes we’d been in for 14 hours…and feel love for one another again.
Ca’Bauta was really there, a former 15th century mansion with marble floors, soaring ceilings, and from our room at least, a view of a 450 year-old courtyard with mossy bricks and tiny flowers. We almost hugged the walls.
On our second hour in Venice, we aimed to find St. Mark’s Basilica. Some might say we’d become cocky, flush with navigational success.
Basilica di San Giovanni e Paolo - Photo by David Holt
In the late afternoon, the whole city seemed to be outdoors. Past an ancient elementary school just letting out for the day, we fell in behind a gaggle of skipping, leaping, shouting children in navy and white uniforms. We followed this joyful posse past the also-ancient Basilica di San Giovanni e Paolo, which was itself surrounded by a motley crew of nuns and Japanese tourists. We stopped on a dime to admire the tall bronze statue of a steed-mounted hero.
Stumbling over the arc of a footbridge, we landed in a small, bustling piazza full of boisterous locals with tiny espressos and huge opinions. The rapid-fire Italian swirling around caught us up in a spirit of l’avventura. Sure, we could have followed the helpful wall sign at the edge of the courtyard, pointing us towards St. Mark’s…but as any Italian knows, logic has no place in the midst of an adventure.
We stumbled into a shaded warren of cobbled streets, a residential stream of quiet. A little grey cat sat inscrutably in a window; the door of his modest home was typically Venetian, sharp curlicues of iron set into well-worn wood. Now and again we’d catch a glassy glimpse of canal, a dark slice of water through the stone. The summer’s last petunias and geraniums trailed from window boxes, seeking faint beams of light. The tinkling of a piano wafted down from someone’s second story, mingling with the smell of fresh-baked bread from someone else’s.
Without a word, we gave each other a high-five; 6,100 miles from our L.A. home, we had just come across the street of our dreams. Nice.
Continued in
Finding Venice: Part Two
My love! You forget: our FIRST “Lost Episode” on this trip was taking the wrong bus from the airport, and enjoying the locals’-eye view of the surrounding countryside for a solid hour before finally being deposited dockside (at a dock which, if memory serves, wasn’t very touristed either).
I believe there were a few moments on that bus where I was convinced we’d be hauled off into the hinterlands and summarily dumped, luggage and all.
THEN we got on the boat, and…please continue your story:
Oh, you’re right!! My favorite part was the fact that, while still at the airport, we’d gotten a voucher for a boat ride…which, of course, we never connected with once we got on the wrong bus. When we finally DID find a boat, near the Venice train station, our elegant, mustachioed vaporetto driver was unable to honor said voucher…so we ended up having to pay an additional 40+ euros. Awesome.
Nice that we managed to turn that day around, though, huh?
Lesson One: Your hotel should tell you how to find it using the vaporettos, not the expensive water taxis. Buy a map before you go so you can follow the directions. By now you know that you were not an a vaporetto, vaporettos are water busses and stick to a route. The Internet hotel lists have maps that show hotel locations. Venetian addresses often give a sestiere and a house number without giving the street name. That’s enough for mail, but not for finding a hotel. Insist on getting the street name.
Lesson Two: Buy a guide small enough to take with you (Michelin’s green guide is my choice) and do your homework. On a dollar per hour cost of being getting there and being there, the cost in time and money for preparation is well worth it.
Lesson Three: Please, not ‘cobbled’ street and alleys. Venice is paved almost exclusively with goosd sized heavy rectangular stones; they are not cobs, nor are the badly laid, but sometimes settle unevenly. Although they can be a bit bumpy, I don’t find them a problem for rolling luggage.
===gm===
I was hopelessly lost in Venice, too, because I am the sort of person that remembers directions using my own innate sense of direction plus maps. Patrick, on the other hand, gets around by relying on visual cues so he didn’t have any problems in Venice. But, getting lost is all part of the adventure, right?