Today we left Innsbruck for the drive down to Venice. It was supposed to be a four hour drive, but apparently, diving into Italy along that direct route is a popular thing to do on a summer Saturday. Who knew? We had lots of company and the drive stretched to about 5 hours instead.
It was a pretty drive, through the Alps and the Dolamites. The electronic toll "fast pass" thing I rented for use in Italy worked like a champ and when I exitied the autostrada I just sailed through a Telepass lane. Very cool. I love technology.
I'd arrived in Venice by train the last time I was here and I left by air, so this was my first time by road. It's kind of a trip. You drive out on the causeway, get the the end, park your car and sort of get assimilated by this carless city.
We rode the vaporetto to the Sant' Angelo stop where we met our greeter, Tanja.
Tanja took us to the apartment... good thing, because addresses in Venice are pretty meaningless. They are just numbered buildings within the sestiere, but the numbers are not in order, so knowing the address doesn't help. Our apartment is San Marco 3769 but that tells you that it's in "San Marco" somewhere
The apartment is very clean and modern with two bedrooms, a sleeper sofa in the living room and air conditioning! That's a big plus because it's very hot here. (Venice in July.... who knew?)
After we settled in, Laura and Katie when shopping and then cooked us a big dinner.
While the girls were making dinner, I walked back to the car because I'd left the cool electronic toll think stuck to the windshield and I decided that I didn't want to leave it there the four nights that I would be parked in the garage. It just seemed too inviting. Nothing is very far away in Venice, the trick is to find the right bridges to get you there. A good map helps. I have a good map, but I couldn't find it so I bought one on the way back to the car. When I got to the car, I collected the Telepass and found my good map on the floor of the passenger seat! Bonus! Walking through the streets of Venice reminded me why we came here. There's something about wandering through a whole pedestrian-only city that transports your mind. It makes it easy to ignore the aggressive vendors hawking junk.
When we finished dinner, we went for a walk to Piazza San Marco to sort of take it all in. It was lightly raining and there was a thunderstorm in the distance, but we didn't care. Walking through the city, the kids finally started to "get Venice." When we arrived, it just seemed like a noisy, busy construction zone where we had to to get on a boat bus to get anywhere. Walking the streets at night and feeling the pulse of the city, being surrounded by people speaking all kinds of languages, seeing the basilica and Piaaza San Marco... they started to get infected by the magic of Venice.
We've no particular plans for how we're spending our days here, but I'm sure that tomorrow will bring more discoveries.
