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It's traveling day, so we got up about 7:30, ate breakfast, and finished packing for a train trip.
We walked to the train station, taking a route north of the hotel. It was a half a block longer, but avoided the construction (and heavy traffic) on the more direct route.
We were early. We arrived at 9:50 for an 11:27 train. This isn't the airlines - no need to arrive so early. So we people watched. We also learned that very few of the trains left from the platforms that the schedule said they would leave from. The schedule is more of a suggestion (for platforms, any way) than a firm schedule. Our train was scheduled for track 10. Once the train pulled in, it was on track 11. Fortunately, we were prepared and knew that the trains wait for no one!!! Of course, our car was at the other end of the train, so we hustled up there and got everything stowed in plenty of time.
There were some interesting older people in the adjoining seats, so we had a pretty pleasant trip to Venice. Well, most of the way to Venice. The train stopped at Maestre, a suburb of Venice, and everyone was told that we had to change trains, that there was a problem with our train. Well, not really. Our welcoming guide said there was probably a minor labor dispute that caused the confusion.
So, everyone exited the train, with their luggage, wrestled it down a double flight of stairs, down a corridor to the track three tracks over, wrestled it back up the stairs, only to find that one of the trains we were to switch to had just left the station. Mass confusion!!! However, there was another one due momentarily. The final leg, from Maestre to Venice took all of ten minutes, once everyone was settled on the train again...
Our welcoming guide had waited for us. She had the arrangements for transferring us from the train to the hotel (Hotel Il Mori d'Oriente). She got us to a water taxi and we soon arrived at our hotel. I worried about our seat companions, however. Their previous hotel clerk had told them to take the vaporetto (water bus) as it was less expensive. However, they were manhandling about six pieces of luggage between the four of them and had to change water buses once... Not nice.
Our hotel is a bit unusual. It was originally about four houses that have had various walls rearranged. Our room is really on the ground floor, but to get to it, we have to go up a flight of stairs, down a hallway, then down a flight of stairs, down two more hallways, and we're there! Some of the hallways made me wonder if the bellman showing us the way was taking a shortcut through the service corridors!
This is our smallest room so far this trip. And they've taken up some of the traffic flow space with a useless table near the door and a desk chair that has to be pushed in or moved completely away in order to get to the bathroom! And there's no windows at all. We may be on the ground floor, but the room is completely enclosed. There's a skylight over one part of the room which is a neat touch. It opens and closes with a touch of a button. The next button over opens and closes the blinds over it.
And the bathroom layout is completely strange. There's the door into the bathroom area (which opens into the room and runs into the bedside table. This door leads to a small room with a sink. Then there's another door (opening into that sink) that leads to the rest of the bathroom. One must almost stand in the bidet in order to use the sink in this second room...
There's a tub, but it's very small - just big enough to be a large shower - with folding glass doors instead of a shower curtain. If the door is folded half way, then you have to climb over toilet to get into it. If you fold the other half, also, then the wet door drips all over the floor. Either way, it's difficult to get into and out of. The open side is higher than the closed side, so there's a slippery step down into the well of the shower itself. We wound up putting our ubiquitous hand towels on both levels to keep from slipping. Don't want to break the butt again...
Oh, well. We got stuff settled in, took showers - Venice is very hot this year - then went exploring. We walked to the Rialto Bridge and San Marco Square. And we bought vaporetto passes for the next three days. Carl would label these water buses velociraptors... And promptly used our tickets to ride the vaporetto back to the landing closest to our hotel.
The photos above are some of the store displays we found in our wanderings. The photo on the left above is a candy display. At the top is a tray of rope licorise, which was sold by the centimeter. The center photo shows some souvenir bottles in the shape of Italy filled with grappa. And the photo on the right is one of many stores we saw with displays of masks. This one also has some glass chess sets for sale.
The photo on the left below shows one of the more unusual street lamps we saw in Venice. It's incorporated a dragon for the support and the lampshades are glass umbrellas!
In our wanderings, we would frequently stop and watch the gondolas plying their trade. The other four photos above are from one of our stops.
This photo is the view we had returning to the hotel.
After cleaning up again, we went to a nearby trattoria, which had mostly locals as customers. We asked if they had an English menu and the waiter said he was our English menu. He made some recommendations (which were delicious). We had a fish sampler for an appetizer and a fried shrimp/calamari/vegetable dish for the main course. Absolutely delicious! Our table was near the kitchen, so we watched them assemble the dishes before delivering them. About half the people there that night were having the same fried dish. It must have been a specialty of the house.
After dinner, we strolled back to the hotel to find our bed had been turned down and the room was cooler - the air conditioning works!!!