You already know that Russian trains hate me. So the Italian trains decided to try to hate me as well. But this time it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Earlier in the week we found out there would be a train strike on the day we wanted to go to Venice. First of all, it is very nice of the workers to warn us about the strike. Second of all, it is very rude of them to try to foil our vacation plans.
The strike was to occur from 9pm on Thursday to 9pm on Friday, and we needed to get to Venice on Friday morning. Which fell exactly in the middle of the strike. After talking to some people (who all gave us good hints, but also warned us that "you never know" with these strikes - which occur, very often by the way), we decided our best bet was to take off from Cinque Terre to La Spezia early on Friday (trains were guaranteed from 6-9am - which is nice, but seems to defeat the purpose of a strike) and then try to catch something to Florence or Bologna, then on to Venice.
We woke up at 5am, took the train to La Spezia, and tried to get a train to Venice. Any train. Or wagon. Or spaceship. Anything. It was 7am, and the next route we could take was at 9pm, getting us into Venice at 5am. That's 9pm, not 9am, which would have been nicer. Of course, after planning on that, that train got messed up and we could only get to Venice at 8am...which was 24 hours from the time we wanted to go!
To kill time (it was only 8am), we wandered around La Spezia hoping the day would pass quickly. Did I mention that the luggage storage at the train station was also on strike? Yea, so we had to carry our luggage with us all over La Spezia. And time did not pass quickly. We wandered the street markets, passing through parks, and sat in a coffee shop taking pictures of ourselves. Like literally, each of us was sitting there taking pictures of ourselves. Ok, so we were bored. And we checked our watches, thinking maybe it was lunch time...but it was barely 10am! The time was crawling like a legless turtle (i.e. it was not moving).
So we decided to try to take the bus to Portovenere, the coastal town we tried to go to the day before but couldn't due to the high winds. We found the bus stop, bought our tickets, and waited. And waited. A guy approached us to tell us (in very broken English) that the buses were on strike so we'd be waiting a long time. We thought he was a cab driver trying to trick us into hiring him to drive us to Portovenere, but it turned out he was right! He wasn't even a cab driver! He was just a citizen trying to warn us. Dang this stupid strike!!
Feeling defeated, we wandered towards the port just to see what it was like, and wouldn't you know it, we found a boat with big letters "Portovenere"! The sun came out and then it seemed it would be a great day, and getting 'stuck' in La Spezia wasn't so bad afterall. If only we didn't have to carry our luggage with us everywhere!
After a nice boat trip, we got to Portovenere, which is a nice little town on the coast, with a nice castle above, little shops and restaurnats everywhere, and locals laid out along the water. There was no real sandy beach, but lots of rocks and places to lay out. With the sun coming out, this was going to be a nice consolation prize, thanks to the strike (and it turned out to be much cheaper and easier to get to Portovenere from La Spezia than from Cinque Terre).
Portovenere
At first I didn't want to go in the water, but after contemplating "we won't regret going in, but we might regret NOT going in", we decided to unpack our swim trunks, change under Kevin's towel (not at the same time), and jump in. We even took jumping pictures of us going in (they are on Kevin's camera, so I don't have them now). Strangely, none of the locals take jumping pictures when going into the water. Weird.
It was very refreshing in the boiling sun. Groups of friends were everywhere, hanging out, playing cards, kicking a ball around, and swimming. It felt like we were fitting in with the locals. Except we were Asian, and we had suitcases.
Locals hanging out on the rocks in Portovenere
Eating gelato on the rocks, with luggage
After 3 straight days in the sun, my skin got pretty red (mostly on my nose and my back where I couldn't reach with sun block - I can reach my nose, so I'm not sure how that burned). Kevin was dark but a bit red, and Pert still looks like a Cambodian fisherman. After a few hours, we went back to La Spezia to catch the train to Venice. We had tickets for La Spezia -> Parma -> Bologna (with a 5 hour layover at 1am) -> Venice.
The train to Bologna was so packed that some people had to stand up, and as an extra bonus, it smelled like manure. And not the good kind. People were making friends with everyone because you were basically sitting or laying in each others' laps (a product of the backup from the strike). One Italian guy was super friendly with us and asked if he could Facebook me (he still hasn't added me as a friend, so I am a bit offended!). He was introducing us to everyone on the train as if he knew them all! Nice guy though.
Once we got to Bologna, around 1am, we had 5 hours til our next train. There was no way we'd stay awake the whole time, so we decided to sleep on benches in the train station. It wasn't what I would call fun, but it wouldn't be a "backpacking" trip without something like this. It's especially great because none of us had shaved in a long time (especially Pert), we hadn't showered, and were living out of suitcases. We literally looked like homeless people laying on benches. I'm surprised we didn't wake up to a pile of food scraps and some loose change in a cup.
McDonalds in Bologna saved our lives at 1:30am - with toilets and food. And impressively a lot of people there were pretty good with their English (not like a lot of the people we ran into). But, looking back, the worst English speakers we tried to talk to were from Quebec! Strange that Canadians would be so unable (or most likely unwilling) to speak English out of everyone we met. Or maybe they just didn't like us.
My bed in the Bologna train station
We finally got to Venice at 8:30am. It was a 30 minute walk to our hotel, and the directions were very sketchy...it gave directions to one square then said "you better ask someone how to get the rest of the way". Seriously! If you have been to Venice, you know that the streets are tiny, winding, and it isn't possible to know your way around. Even with a map it's confusing because the streets are so small that not all street names fit on the map.
One of many canals in the city
We finally found it, showered, resisted the temptation to sleep the rest of the day, and set out to explore the city, as we only had 24 hours. The city and all the canals are beautiful. The dense crowds and high prices are not. We visited St Marks Square, the Rialto Bridge (looking for love), and wandered along the canals. We didn't take a gondola ride because it is a massive rip-off, but we noticed that not all gondola drivers sing to their customers! What an urban legend that is...apparently you have to hire a separate singer, which makes the already expensive trip even more unaffordable. After some lunch and some tapas (yes, we had both), we met with Federica, a fellow Couchsurfer who agreed to meet us and show us around town. She took us along the canals, through some side streets we never would have found, and enjoyed a nice walk around the city.
St. Marks Square
Scenic views everywhere
Federica is Italian/Austrian and lives in Venice in the Summers. She sells her dad's paintings on the street, and the way she describes her dad, he is a bit of a legend among the street vendors. Plus, he met Federica's mom when he was a 36 year old Italian artist and she was a 17 year old Austrian tourist in Venice. Wow! As we walked around and Federica told us about the city, we stopped for gelato twice, a drink (I forgot the name but its orange and bitter), and then she left us so we could go eat more.
With Federica at her favorite gelato shop
We found an outdoor BBQ/festival where we had a "primi" of ribs/chicken/polenta/potatoes. Then we found a restaurant that was recommended for some seafood risotto. After this you could say we were quite full. But it was my last dinner in Italy so I didn't mind. We thought about meeting Federica for some drinks, but after wandering for 40 minutes (somewhat lost) trying to find out hotel to drop our backpacks off, we decided we were too tired.
The festival we found, where we ate dinner part 1
View from Rialto Bridge
It's too bad we weren't in a party mood, because the neighbors in our apartment were having a party til 4am, and everytime they woke me up I thought about joining them, but decided I needed the sleep. Maybe next time.
In the morning we had time to grab a 'sandwich' (aka a rolled up pizza) then head to the train. I used my last lactaid (which made for 19 on the trip), so I guess I did a pretty good job rationing...I used about 2.5 per day, mostly on gelato (at least 10), pizza, and different pastas. My belly is very big now.
I had a long, but uneventful trip to Milan, to Malpensa airport, to Warsaw, and to home. A trip of great fun, and surprisingly a lot of rest since we went to bed early every night (except for when sleeping in train stations).
I am already looking forward to my next trip, my next holiday in the sun, and my next chance to gorge myself without feeling bad about it. And you should probably come with me!
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