Today's forecast for Venice was rain! However we woke up to brilliant sunshine that awakened our spirits as well. I was happy on two accounts; one we would have a sun kissed day to explore Venice and two even their weatherman goes wrong. But before we could start seeing the city, I had to check-in the hotel as we had arrived late yesterday and also pay those extra charges. At the reception I was met by this fat lady whose face I tried to search behind her layers of makeup. Any thought of working my charm to get those extra charges waived off needed serious reinforcement. But she turned out to be a sweetheart and apologized for keeping us waiting yesterday. I seized the opportunity and started cribbing as to how tired we were and there were mosquito's everywhere and all that jazz. I don't know whether she had made up her mind earlier or the cribbing helped, she didn't charge us the extra 20 euro for coming late and apologized again. WOW the day kept getting better.
Swati and I went to this small crepe shop/cafe we had seen yesterday and had some awesome crepes for breakfast. Now it was time to get to the heart of Venice which is the St Marks square. Also not to be missed is the Rialto bridge. Both are close to each other but bit far from our hotel. There are water buses called vaperrato or water taxi's, however we decided to walk as the weather was perfect and we thought we would get the flavor of the place. We passed many narrow lanes, cobble stoned streets, small bridges and innumerable canals with private boats and gondolas in them. The only drawback of Venice is that there are way too many tourists. They were pouring out from almost all the lanes and bylanes, it reminded me of an enormous ant hill I had seen on national geographic with the camera inside it and ants coming from every hole in it. After a while the crowd gets to you and all you want is a peaceful corner to enjoy the beauty of the city. But could I complaint as I also was just another tourist?!
We passed the Rialto bridge and like all the tourists clicked photos from the best spots possible. As we were following directions to St Marks square one narrow lane suddenly opened up to this gigantic monument called the St Marks dome. If not for the scaffolding it would have been a better site than the duomo in Milan. But in front of the structure was an enormous open space may be which would have fitted two football grounds, it was the St Marks square. The sheer no of people it was holding would put it in direct competition with CST station in Mumbai. After we got over the awe of the place we decided to take the vapoerrato back to our hotel. On our way to the hotel from the bus stop we halted at a cafe which looked lively. It has seating inside and outside as do most of the cafes in Venice. Although full outside we insisted on seating outside. The well dressed waiter/captain then said we would have to share a table and put a small vase onto a table besides a young white couple. That was supposed to be our partition. We didn't have any qualms about it since we do this sharing thing almost everyday at the udapi restaurant Roopali next to our shop. But we didn't know what the other couple would think. As we found out the other couple were students from Germany and had come to Venice unplanned. The guy Robert had long hair and beard whereas the girl Mona had short red hair. We got taking and discussed almost everything possible under the sun. From our cultures to Hitler to religion to wars to loathing the US you name it and we discussed it. One of the great things of traveling is to meet people from far off land only to understand how same we all are. Robert and Mona if you are reading this blog, I invite you to visit our beautiful ancient land as well and I promise to take you around.
After we had exhausted all topics of discussion we bade them farewell.
Now as promised to Swati we would go shopping. Venice shops are full of colorful Venetian masks and other souvenirs. Swati picked up a few for us and for our family. But the best buy off the day would prove to be the most valuable for our next leg of the trip in the alps - closed boots for Swati.
One last thing remained before we retired for the day. Tomorrow we have a train reservation to Salzburg but the train originates from Venice mestre which is on the mainland just one stop away from the island of Venice. We had to enquire about getting there. We found out we just have to take a local ticket available at a newspaper stand on the platform and we would be good. Assured of this we came out of the station to the magnificent sight of Venice and bought ourselves some wine and sat under a bridge sipping and romancing the place.