7/25 -- Venice/travel

August 28, 2022

Our last morning in Venice, and we had arranged for family pictures to be taken. The photographer wanted to take us “off the beaten path” so we got to explore some less touristy parts of Venice. Then it was food, to the hotel to get our stuff (we had had to check out before pictures), and then to the train station for the cross-country trip to the Cinque Terra.

It’s hard to say what I enjoyed the most about Venice, but high on the list was just wandering around the city. It seems that everywhere — or at least everywhere that we went — was within a 30 minute walk, so we walked nearly everywhere. Thank goodness for Google maps on our phones, because the city is a maze of “streets” that look like alleys but really they are streets. They are narrow and sometimes crowded and sometimes deserted, and then they randomly open up into all these squares/plazas, ranging in size. You have to really trust that you’re going to get where you need to go, and be ok getting lost. We got lost a lot. The bridges over the canals were really neat too. We saw one one morning that ended at a building — like a private driveway, only a bridge (it was Sunday morning and the building was closed so I don’t know what it was but it looked like a residence as there was no sign).

Low on the list of what we enjoyed was the heat and humidity. The entire northern hemisphere is experiencing a heat wave right now so I know it’s not just us and I don’t want to complain. But it was really super hot, and then the humidity made it that much worse. (We Montanans are not accustomed to humidity.) The itineraries we (I) had created for each day of our trip are full and I knew we might not get to do everything on them, but I didn’t take into account needing to stop at the hotel throughout the day to cool off and sometimes to nap. So, we didn’t see everything we (I) had planned in Venice but that’s ok. What we saw was enough, and if we have the chance to go back, I know we will in a heartbeat.

In the early afternoon we took a train to our next stop, the Cinque Terre, which is a chain of 5 towns on the coast with hiking trails connecting them. We made it to Florence and then discovered our train to La Spezia had been canceled. Thankfully we were able to get on another train leaving in half an hour (that would just about never happen with a canceled flight). The new train had a change in Pisa, and the platform listed on our train from Florence to Pisa was wrong so we got on the wrong train — but the wrong train was also going to La Spezia and the official person on board said our ticket was good for it, so we took that one.

La Spezia was kind of a “whatever”. We had already booked a place in Monterroso del Mar (the northern-most city of the 5) when we decided to leave Venice a day earlier than initially planned, and our Monterroso place couldn’t accommodate us a night early, so we booked a place in La Spezia with plans to leave early the next morning for Monterroso. But our place was actually in a super cute neighborhood, and we found an amazing little place for dinner that appeared to be run by a husband and wife who spoke little English. The food was incredible, as was the house wine (a local white). This was the second restaurant we’ve visited where they brought a shot of limoncello for Jourdan and I with the bill. I hadn’t tried it before this trip; it’s delicious. Side note: we had to book two rooms in both La Spezia and Monterroso. Just like Milan cabs, our family is evidently too big for Cinque Terre hotel rooms/Airbnbs.

While walking to dinner we found ourselves ambling down the middle of the street, much to the annoyance of the Vespa drivers behind us. Two days in Venice and already we had forgotten about traffic!