The Quinn Family Excellent Adventure: Goodbye Roma Italy - Hello Venice Italy

So here we are in Venice. We were so glad to have decided to stay in the cool part. The train to the mainland seemed too far to do twice a day had we stayed there. Plus the price difference was not really that much. Before we walked to our Airbnb, I had plenty of time to take in the sites. The train station end right at the water. It is here that a huge number of Water buses, Water taxi's and other water craft arrive and pass by. We spent a bit of time trying to figure out the complex looking water transport system. It looked fun. I let our Airbnb host we were to arrive soon and off we started walking. It was "only" 900 meters or so. The route is really interesting. The Venice walkways are often really thin, some are low, and many cross tiny bridges over their canal system. Our phone GPS's have a hard time tracking us due to the thin roads and high buildings. It was kinda fun but tiring with all out stuff. The scenery easily makes up for the struggle. We did eventually find our Airbnb door and soon the host greeted us and showed us around. It's a very beautiful home inside. in the lower part of the house are 2 larger room's. The biggest had 5 bunk beds jammed in. Ours had 3 with a little more space. Upstairs had 2 private room. We counted 20 beds in all. The kitchen was nice but there was a real absence of utensils. Weird. 2 bathrooms with that many bodies looked like future fun. Either way we were in Venice and right in the coolest part of town.

20 steps from our home was a nice bakery/pizza place with impressive looking items in the window. Beside that was a great looking Gelato spot. 1 minute from that was a grocery store called Coop. All these stores and many others surrounded the prettiest square. When school let out, the square is filled with kids, parent and grandparents. It's nice to see this mingled with appreciative travelers enjoying the warming days. The Coop had everything we needed and being so close it wasn't necessary to bulk up too much. The pizza in the window was awesome. It was my main fuel for many days. Fueled up and stocked up, we had plenty of time to explore. Walking around randomly here is out of the question. Even with Google maps and a GPS, a route involves many turns and tight alleyways to meander the streets and bridges. I was astonished how may others were in the same boat. One wrong turn and you are down a dead end alleyway possibly ending in the water. There is no shortage of locations to sit on steps leading to the large or smaller canals waterways to have a beer or wine. We were kinda baked the first evening and headed to bed early. I should have heeded the Airbnb warnings I read about the mosquito. There are no screens on the windows. 6 bodies in a small room is hot. Open windows meant dinner time for the inevitable mosquito buffet. It was a pretty crummy sleep for me being beside the window. Tomorrow, the mosquito net with be busted out.

During next day two nice Russian girls checked in and needed some help. They had met each other only moments earlier on the train to the Airbnb. The kitchen setup is kinda lame as are the instructions. They needed a little guidance where stuff was. Of course I volunteered. They soon were looking for wine openers for 2 wine bottles they had bought. The local stores had none. Weird. I knew how to push the cork through and helped them with the process. It was hard with the few kitchen tools. Soon our 2 new Russian friends were armed with open bottles of wine heading out the door. Russian girls were the theme for our room as well. It seems Venice is the place to go if you are a looking for a place to party. Sadly the girls in our room were kinda lacking any typical hostel courtesy. They slept in until way past noon. In the morning/afternoon rudely took over the bathrooms to get all dolled up and then headed out partying until the wee hours of the night. That's all cool but when they came home they had to crash around the room with their friggin phone's lit up to get their shit together before bed. Michelle was pissed. We chose to not warn them of the mosquito's and kinda crashed around in the morning to ensure karma was served. We really enjoyed our mosquito nets. Best investment evar.

In chatting with a couple of dudes from the US, I learned that they were concerned their morning train was probably cancelled due to a planned strike. Unions are apparently quite prevalent in Italy. They choose to strike but are kind enough to schedule them. They are also kind enough to ensure the strike involves only non critical times. Routes to airports and rush hours are not effected. Crazy. The dates and times are even made public. One of the nicer Russian girls (remember the wine) survived and was in the kitchen looking like she was packing to leave. I asked if she was taking the train. Yes was the answer. I did not want to freak her out but had to tell her about the strike info I had just learned. She freaked out. I felt terrible. Her English was not very strong and with her days plans possibly in jeopardy she was almost in tears. The Wifi sucked and her research was now impeded. I fired up my Hotspot for her and helped her with the process. I even offered to go to the train station to talk to someone as it's impossible to find and facts about her travels with the internet. She thanked me and soon we were out the door. I hot spotted her for the entire time. It turns out she is a Math Professor. Soon to be a Doctor. Wild. She had a young girl and was taking a well deserved break. So cool. We worked our way to the station, got to the proper train counter and learned that her train was not effected by the strike. Sweet. She had a few hours to kill and together we walked around chatting and checking out the sites. It was great. Michelle and KT were unfortunately too busy to join us. On the way back to the station we passed to Airbnb and took a washroom break. Her Russian friend joined us and the three of us headed to the train station. After a nice pizza break we headed to the tracks and said farewell. It was great to turn a potential strike issue into a great afternoon and new friend.

I spent quite a bit of time sitting at the Airbnb breakfast table doing research and blogging. It always wound up being a conversation starter with new random people. Soon it was a very shy Russian young man and a person from Norway. The Russian was there for days but always hid in the corner. His English was very weak. I broke out the Pocketalk and soon we were all goofing off with the translator. It was fun. It was not 100% but it got people sitting together which is probably the best use of the toy.

Michelle and KT wanted to do a Venice Gondola. It was $80 per boat for 30 minutes. I thought what the hell. I was hoping to find someone to join us for free. We paid for a boat for possibly 6. We could not find any random people to join us so off we went. It was actually totally cool. The driver indicate the process to be able to command these watercraft is quite involved. Pushing such a heavy long boat forward through these crowded waterways is a serious skill. The paddle or ore is pushed against a beautiful wooded stay. The boat itself is a work of art. The driver spouts off history and culture during the entire journey. After a short jaunt in the protected inner canal we head out into the more open waterways. It's impressive how fast he can push the boat. The waves from other traffic is pretty big. We were happy to rejoin the smaller waterways. It calm and very quiet as your silent water craft is propelled through what is essentially the backyards of many homes.

Kaitlyn wanted to visit friends in Europe. The first was Timi in Switzerland. After Switzerland she was planning to connect with her Canadian friend Nate in Ireland. Booking her train to Switzerland was pretty easy. Trying to use her Eurail pass from Switzerland to the west coast of France was really difficult. There was no online one stop shop. I tried using a human on the phone to arrange it. After 45 minutes of back and forth trying to make it work I had to bail. Many of the stops involved taxi's between adjacent train stations. It was a mess and Kaitlyn was in no condition to carry her heavy gear on and off multiple train switches. Flying was the only option. Oh well. A flight from Zurich Switzerland to Dublin Ireland was super easy to arrange and not so pricey. We walked Kaitlyn to the Venice train station and bid her farewell for a while. She looked happy to be away from Mom and Dad for a while onto her Switzerland adventure.

We had plenty of time to check out Venice some more. We finally got the guts to attempt the water bus. The people know how to drive on the water, wow. Our first destination was the famous Island of Murano https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murano. It's home to endless numbers of glass makers. We blasted through that part of town and walked to what looked like some parkland at the other end of the island. It was nice to escape the crowds. On the way there, one of the stops is the San Michele Cemetery. The cemetery was for me a desirable place to visit as it's obviously a little quieter. That was to be tomorrows destination. For now we figured lets hop back onto the taxi and head out on a journey to go completely around Venice. One of the water bus assistance told be it's about 2 hours for a complete go around including all the stops. That would make a pretty fun thing to do. The bus crashed about in the deeper wavy water which is fun. Each stop has it's own challenges with waves, wind, other boats and current. The driver is not interested in docking gently but quickly. It's not uncommon for a pretty decent crash against the dock. As the dock surface and boat edges are reinforced steel with rubber, they don't care. It's kinda fun. The boat is filled with all kinds of random tourists and often their large bags. It's also full of locals just getting round with their lives. It's a really cool place to sample the culture. If you choose this journey you eventually pass the southern portion of Venice where massive cruise ships are moving and docking. These cruise ships are the source of frustration for many locals. The wash from the ships does great damage to the island. Just after we left one came crashing into the docks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNYUnS03-s4. I'm curious if this crash will be the catalyst for change.

The cemetery was holy moly awesome. It's massive. It's also very old. You could spend hours there. There is a huge variety of burial plots types over the years. There is also a very beautiful church. It's not geared for tourists which is nice. There were no restaurants or cafe's. Just a simple vending machine and a few washrooms. The rest of the land is dedicated to the burial of the dead. It's also insanely quiet which is kinda what we need as the Venice crowds were starting to get to us. After the cemetery we decided to get off at the nearest main Venice stop and simply walk home. This part of Venice was alot more crowded that where we were. We soon popped past a very interesting looking pub with great looking food prices. I wish we had found this place earlier. The food was great and really affordable. We had to go back for another meal the next day to show our support. On our last evening walk home we saw a huge liquid chocolate log thingy in a window. It was a very smart window dressing because soon we were inside sampling chocolate, pesto and salt/truffle things. These people had really nailed the tastes of these things and were not shy about handing our samples. The prices were insane but to show our support we bought some truffle flavored salt, 2 chocolate covered almonds and some amazing pesto. Michelle wisely took a photo of the entire package.

Our time in Venice was over. Tomorrow was a 07:20 train to Luzerne Switzerland. It was time to pack up and prepare for an early departure. We were very nice to not disturb our smelly drunk Russian friend to much on the way out. It was sooo tempting to do something but we both let Karma do it naturally. The walk to the train station was very nice so early in the morning. The station had a well maintained washroom requiring a fee like 1 to 2 Euro's. This was common in several public place. I have no issues paying a Euro or 2 if it means a clean washroom with a guarantee of toilet paper. One final poop in Venice and soon we were onward to Switzerland. We were sooo excited.