Or as some prefer to call it: “The Birmingham of the Mediterranean”. Maybe stretching it a bit!
We have been home for 6 months since returning from South Africa and a spring trip to Italy is needed if only to get away from the pseudo election posturing of the government that, hardly believably, gets worse with every day that passes. Maybe I will be pleasantly surprised to find an election has been declared when we return in about 9 or 10 days time. And I can see pigs from seat 18F out the starboard side of the Airbus A321 I am currently occupying. But please, soon! The rotting carcass that is this government should be put to sleep as soon as possible. I can’t bear hearing feeble excuses for racist, misogynist, rich donors any more. And all the time while the 2p cut in National Insurance has bombed in the polls as it deserved to do so, naked bribe that it was. Maybe Penny Mordaunt will be PM by the time we return. Madder things have happened in this Conservative Party.
Oops … didn’t mean to start with a rant, but there you have it. Just my justification for jetting off to European sanity, armed with my Irish passport of course. I’m saying this is a birthday trip but at my age I am not sure I want to actually extend my birthdays anymore. But here is what I am going to...
So where are we going? You did ask. Italy, and then across the border into Slovenia, a country I have never visited, to spend our last few nights in Ljubljana. Technically I have presented an academic paper at a psychology conference in Ljubljana but for some for reason I cannot now remember, I wasn’t actually present for its delivery. So I guess that does not count for having ever actually visited. So another European country is to be experienced, and I will doubtless find it more civilised than the country in which I actually live. Perhaps I should start counting European countries like American states - can’t have that many to go!
But Ljubljana will have to wait. We are not due to are there until en end of the week. First we have 6 days in glorious northern Italy, initially in Venice, a city I have never visited, and then Trieste (ditto).
As expected the EasyJet flight was uneventful and followed by a magnificent entrance to the city via a vaporetto - a water bus. Of course it is by water, there is no other way to get around Venice. (I’m no longer in seat 18F watching the pigs by the way).
Not surprisingly I feel like I am in a Canaletto painting…
And as I continue this rambling I am now sitting in the lounge/lobby of the rather lovely hotel watching the gondolas go by. You can even arrive at the hotel by gondola! For a price! We, being the cheapskates that we are, took the public waterbus from the airport and walked! But saved ourselves about €150, so banked for the doubtless extravagant meals out!
Well, on that note … in fact as long as you steer clear of Piazza San Marco where you need to sell a kidney to afford lunch, the prices are actually pretty reasonable. We ate lunch today in some back street trattoria for 15 bucks a piece - pizza, gnocchi and two large glasses of vino de la casa. What’s not to like! Of course you have to have the will to explore a little away from the tourist honey pots - ie not San Marco or the Rialto Bridge. But it ain’t that difficult - although getting lost in the labyrinthine alleys is almost a given, so best not to be too nervous of apparent dead ends and narrow passages that appear to lead nowhere. But what an atmosphere. You can wander for hours, crossing canal after canal, gawping at the gondolas (yours for €180 an hour) squeezing though narrow spaces and under tiny bridges that have been here for millennia (well, centuries anyway).
I have to be honest and I was prepared to be slightly disappointed by Venice. It is so hyped and reputedly so expensive I rather expected to feel ripped off and underwhelmed by what I thought might be a kind of toy town history. I admit it, I was wrong. It is a fabulous place and we were lucky enough to hit it on a glorious clear blue sky day at about 18º. Couldn’t have asked for better. And having sussed out the local vaporetto (waterbus) service that you get on and off like a … well, a bus! We found ourselves in any number of back streets, beautiful squares and eventually the island of Murano to check out the glass, buy the required hand blown Christmas tree decoration and marvel at both the skill of glass blowers and the history of glass making that goes back centuries here.
Clear glass was first made here and established its reputation as a glass centre of the world. And it’s really pretty! And a lot less crowded than St Mark’s Square. And the Rialto Bridge. We did of course visit those as well but we didn’t linger too long. Although we will be back tomorrow to check out the Doge’s Palace - but at opening time in a probably misplaced hope of avoiding at least some of the crowds.
We ended our daylight hours today with a beer and a spritz of some description in an old square we will probably never find again. And as I write this rubbish Nareesa is researching restaurants for us to patronise this evening. But having conquered at least 20,000 steps today I think we need a little rest first.
We have another full day here tomorrow and the weather looks like it will remain kind. So endless walking and getting lost beckon. I am sure the Doge’s Palace will live up to expectation (you will hear it here first if it doesn’t) and we still have to take a boat up the Grand Canal. We have spotted a concert of Vivaldi music in an old church that might attract us tomorrow evening but as usual we have little in the way of a plan and tomorrow might turn out completely different. But it will certainly be fun. I’m already loving this city and will doubtless be sad to leave. But with Trieste to follow, from where I will probably next post, we have more to look forward to.
Looking up the Grand Canal from the Rialto Bridge
The aforementioned bridge
Towards Piazza San Marco, avoiding the building supplies!
Domes of the Basilica
Bridge from the prison to the Doge's Palace which doubled as the court (I think). Sigh, on crossing.Hence the Bridge of Sighs
That will do for now. See you in Trieste.
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