European Adventures: Italy (Venice)

Let's go to #Venice Bloggie!

As T and I sat on that train, the conductor emerged, and we prayed he would be blind to our grave error. He had almost certified us passenger worthy and we were just about to breathe when... the tides changed. Busted!

"After sighing and heaving and just really being at a total loss of words, he calmly (and very nicely) gave us our only options. We could pay an exorbitant fee (which he didn't recommend) and continue to Venice, or we could alight from the train at the next station and get new tickets to Venice. We happily and hurriedly took the latter option. We got off at Brescia station (my juvenile self read Brassiere😆) and after trying to explain our situation to the ticket master, he called in a God sent translator who convinced him to pity us and not forgo the money we already spent purchasing our tickets. So, he issued us new tickets accounting for our expenses. Phew! After that, we had enough time to roam the train station and get lunch plus our beloved Fanta.   
The whole train ride was about two hours. And I made us partially get off at the wrong station. In my defense, I looked out and saw we were at "Venezia Mestre" and only Venezia registered. We had almost gotten completely off the train when the conductor let us know we weren't there yet. Had to re-lug our suitcases and go sit back down 😑. We were apparently heading to Venezia Lucia.
Since we had been through enough this day, T and I decided to definitely take transportation to our hostel even though according to Maps, it would take less than 30 minutes to walk there. So out the station we came to find our ride. But lo and behold, water was the first (and only) thing to greet us. We walked out a little and found water taxis. A guy walked up to us and asked about our destination. After we told him, he said it would cost 60 Euros to take us there. Let me not even lie, I took the price hook, line and sinker. But luckily, T had her head in the game! She adamantly refused the price. He brought another person to convince us to pay the 60 bucks. That one now came, and said he'd take us for 30 bucks. Yawa (trouble)! Original guy went down to 25 bucks. T kuku said, no."

We were resigned to trekking the trek and collapsing later. We headed to what at the time seemed like the worst bridge ever built! We couldn't see anything beyond it and hoped we were headed in the right direction. It probably took us twice the normal amount of time to cross that bridge what with our suitcases, the stairs, and our exhausted bodies. In retrospect, it was a very beautiful bridge but girls were not smiling so, girls did not appreciate 😄.

"On crossing, everything changed. Life was on the other side of the bridge. We saw signs for taxis and immediately got in line for one. A cab driver kindly let us know that cars couldn't get to our destination and our options were to walk or take the public ferry which wasn't far away. Before we left him, he told us the secret to Venetian beauty; tons of walking. He also assessed our footwear and declared us fit to walk while we in turn, assessed our bodies and declared us fit to take the ferry! 😁
The ferry was only 7 bucks (can you imagine?). I think if we had expected all this journeying, we would have enjoyed the ferry ride better. But we were eager to get to our destination and settle down. The door to our hostel was in a little alleyway so we rightly walked past it. When we finally found it, we were pleased to discover a beautiful interior! It had a "wonderful rustic yet preserved" feel to it. The view of the water from our room was gorgeous and reminded me of a secondary school trip we took to Sea School in Lagos. Our host was great! We were only spending one night here (something we both regretted) and needed to know how to get to the airport, where to eat dinner, what to see, etc. He gave us so much information. He even looked up the schedules for boats to the airport and told us what time to be at the stop. We freshened up and decided to take up his dinner suggestion before sightseeing the night away.

Dudette! Food was FANTASTIC! We passed the restaurant a couple times because its name wasn't visible from the outside but boy was it a gem! The owner was present and chatted with us a bit. He made some recommendations and personally took our orders and that seemed like his norm. Such a lovely touch 😊. Every single course was absolutely delightful! I made the faux pas of ordering white wine with red meat and he didn't hold it against me... I think. After dinner, we walked around town and because shops were closed, we were able to window shop and mark the shops we would visit in the morning. We also got to window shop super expensive stores with pure delight (mwahaha) and saw the gondolas."

Regret No.2, not riding the #gondolas. I'm pretty sure something was wrong with me when I said no. Sigh. On the other hand, one of our roommates was a Mexican girl studying in Europe and I got to show off my secondhand Spanish :D. We slept off to the sounds of people singing in the street :).

Day 4.
We were supposed to be on a mission in the morning but both our bodies were complaining and not willing to move too fast.

"We made it to breakfast later than planned and I managed to baffle our host by asking about drinking water 🙈. I hadn't paid attention to the fact that I hadn't seen anyone drink bottled water all along. #Tapwaterislife. 
Still good on time, we headed out and took some pictures along the dock and our roommate even helped take photos of us. As we were just minding our business and sticking to our plan, people came to scatter it. Apparently, one of the spaces we passed last night was used for local artisan markets in the morning. Sooo... of course we had to stop and look around. There were so many beautiful things but we couldn't carry any so we fed our eyes well. We eventually got back on course but the damage had been done. We shopped for things we had planned to get, and more that sprung up in the morning. What did this mean for us? You guessed it! Another hightailing session back to the hostel to grab our things so we could catch the boat ride. It also meant we didn't get to eat gelato in Italy!! 😩😭 But I digress. The ride to the airport was a 2 hour ride so we couldn't miss it. Luckily, we caught the boat and headed to the airport to catch our flight to Luxembourg."

Our flight got delayed several times so we decided to get food at the airport. We got good pasta dishes and started eating but there were no further flight delays so we carried our yums on board. Goodbye Venice! We miss you!

Ending notes: The cab driver was right. Venetians are beautiful and walking sure keeps them healthy :). Also, if you love preserved and romantic places, visit Venice.
Enjoy DJ Neptune's "Wait" ft. Kizz Daniel. The melody is quite similar to Yvonne Chaka Chaka's "Umqombothi."

Stay fantastic!
Tonia