To Venice
Trip Start
May 14, 2008
1
14
17
Trip End
May 30, 2008
May 27- We're off on our final road trip, to Venice. We checked out and said arevaderci to Fagiolari and hit the road around 9:30. After getting to the Autostrade toll road we had good roads but lots of traffic all the way and numerous tunnels and we arrived in Venice around 1. After you cross a bridge into Venice everyone has to park their car; we gave up our rental car there, bought a Venice Pass (for unlimited public boat bus transportation) and took off on a boat down the Grand Canal for our hotel. We had no problem with getting off at the right stop but lots of problems navigating the narrow and winding (and lots of dead ends) lanes to find our hotel even though we had directions. I am used to narrow winding lanes in Italy but Venice is like a maze and the lanes are not well marked even by Italian standards. But we finally find our hotel, Ca' Angeli www.caangeli.it and get checked in and find it is probably the nicest we've stayed in while in Italy. We explore a little on our own and I find that the main piazza area exceeds Pisa for blatant commercialism and people selling junk to tourists. The huge piazza has lots of pigeons and some tourists are extending their arms to get the pigeons to land on them for a photo. I'm told that the pigeons used to be a bigger problem but the city of Venice recently banned the corn sellers. Now the corn sellers are having a protest demonstration on the piazza with their empty corn carts. We return to the hotel to have a happy hour on B & G's terrace (our room does not have a terrace, but G & B are paying €25 more per night for theirs)and have dinner in a nearby restaurant recommended by our hotel host.
