FLASHBACK #64D: Italy - Rimini, Ravenna, Mestre nr. Venice

Day 10 – 10 July – Rimini to Ravenna to Mestre nr. Venice.

The prospect of moving on yet again this morning filled me with dread since I was just starting to really relax; in Rimini, one wasn't bombarded with churches and museums and lot's a religious imagery. Instead, there were restaurants and bars and beaches, my kind of thing! Having said that, the weather hadn't been that kind to us in Rimini so moving on was probably for the best.

We headed north towards Ravenna on Route SS16. In the distance, on our left, we saw the impressive mount of San Marino. The motorway was uneventful in itself, until we pulled into Ravenna. Whilst there, we visited the Basilica di Santa Apollinana Nuoro, Basilica di Santa Vital and the Mausolea di Galle Placidia. The town was very low-key, the pedestrian-only centre of town dotted with tourists who had made this unlikely detour, most likely on their way to Venice just like us.

About 2pm, we continued along the SS309 towards Venice. Sunflower fields and cornfields dotted the landscape. As we proceeded, I looked at the map and told Bree that there seemed to be some kind of delta on the way which might be worth checking out. There was nothing in the Lonely Planet guide about the place, Scardovari, but sometimes it was nice to go of the beaten track so we did. We turned off at Porto Tolle and headed east; we were transported into a world very much like Florida where marshland, fishing spots and pelicans dominated the landscape.

We made a stop at a camping site where we found a café bar selling sandwiches – we were both famished and the two sandwiches we consumed were very filling. We continued our drive to the edge of the delta where fishing shacks and boats nestled beneath a hazy blue sky; it reminded me of the Virginian Lakeland's as seen in the movie The Prince of Tides starring Barbara Streisand and Nick Nolte.

As we continued our drive, we reached the point where all you could see was sea. We had reached the Delta del Po. We followed the road and, before we knew it, we had done a complete circuit and were back at Porto Tolle again. We rejoined the SS309 and drove north towards Venice.

We were 40km away from Venice when we saw dark grey clouds gathering in the north. In the distance, lightning emanated from the sky: it was approaching 5pm by this time and our thoughts were focused on where to stay for the night. Rain started to fall as I looked through the list of hotels in Venice. We had a hotel booked for tomorrow night, but not this evening so we pondered upon whether or not to stay outside of Venice this evening and drive onto the Island in the morning or whether to go Venice now and enjoy two evenings there. Before long, we had taken the SS11 turnoff to Venice. A couple of kilometres down the road and we on the bridge that takes you to the Island of Venice. From this angle, the island looked very compact while, above us, a plane was coming to land at an airport on the mainland.

Once we had reached the other end of the bridge – which reminded me of the Overseas Highway which links the Florida Keys – we parked outside a multi-story car park and looked for some tourist office who could advise on where to stay. Not yet 6pm, it seemed that everything was closed. Moving cars still kept all lanes going into Venice busy, but frustrated by a lack of orientation with the place, we decided to head back to Mestre just outside Venice and stay there. What good would it do arriving in Venice this late anyway?

We headed back to Mestre and stayed at the aptly named Hotel Venice for the night. It was convenient to stay there since parking was included in the price, which meant no fear of getting a parking ticket! After checking in and settling into our hotel room, we headed out for a walk in the rain, aided by an umbrella loaned to us by the hotel. I always thought of Italy as a very dry country! Yeah, right! We've experienced rained for some four days running now so perhaps the drought is officially coming to an end?!

Mestre, clearly not targeted at tourists, was dead. Admittedly a Sunday night, there were no restaurants or bars open, although there was a café, but that wouldn't serve the purpose of a nice dinner. We ate at the restaurant in the hotel and, after yet another filling three course meal, we took a walk and found the centre of town with it's modest piazza and water feature. Mestre was Mestre, that's all I can say!

Day 11 – 11 July – Mestre to Venice

After waking at 9am, we headed to breakfast which featured the usual croissants and hard bread. I admitted to Bree that I was starting to miss my Finnish breakfast of ham and cheese with punajuri (beetroot salad)! We checked out, loaded up the car and drove the short distance to Venice. By 10am, we had already parked the car in the multi-story car park near Piazzale Roma.

As we left the parking house, we encountered our first con of the day. A man told us to go down the road for a water bus to Saint Mark's square. Naturally, we were interested in going to Saint Mark’s so we set off in the said direction. We were told the fare was €10 each and boarded the water-taxi. This didn't look like the waterbuses in the photos I had seen, I told Bree. While we waited for the water taxi to reach capacity, I called the reservation telephone number for the Last Supper to see if we could fit in a viewing in Milan on the last day of our trip. I finally got through and managed to get us a reservation for 9.15am.

Ten minutes passed and the water taxi still wasn't filling up. I told Bree that this can't be a real waterbus because they go more frequently than this, very much like London's tube lines. I told him that more frequent waterbuses should be around here somewhere so we got out of the boat and followed the meandering canal. Just 200 metres away, we were presented with a number of waterbus stop points. Our only task was to buy tickets so we made enquiries with passers-by, finally finding the ticket office and managed to get 24 hour unlimited waterbus tickets for just €10.50 each. The one way ticket to Saint Mark's square would have cost us €10 each! What a con, eh?!

Anyway, we boarded waterbus number 82 which would take us to Rialto where our hotel was situated. As the bus departed from the jetty, I armed myself with the new digital camera I had bought in San Marino and was impressed by architecture reminiscent of the Wall's Ice Cream ads on TV from my childhood!

Crowds filled the streets and every possible means of transports was filled to capacity. Within 20 minutes, we arrived beneath the impressive Rialto Bridge where we disembarked. We boarded the 82 extension waterbus and travelled to the end of the line to Lido.
We stayed onboard and admired Venice with its many spires and domes. We followed the same route, but in reverse and disembarked at St. Mark's Square. Nearby, we saw some masquerades and Bree had a picture taken with them.

Pigeons had clearly made St. Mark's Square their home and It dawned on me that any entry fees to any churches round here would clearly be allocated to cleaning up all the pigeon shit from everywhere!

We walked back to the hotel through the meandering streets, stopping briefly for some very appetising sandwiches. The location of Rialto was very clearly signposted so we followed the signs. Within half an hour, we emerged from the narrow, pastel coloured street into the busy vicinity near Rialto bridge.

We retrieved our printed confirmation for our overnight accommodation at Hotel Graspo De Ua and, as luck would have it, we took one side street and, after walking along a urine-stinking-graffiti-and-advert-emblazoned-alleyway, we found our hotel. My only hope was that our hotel room was better than the distasteful alleyway we had just passed.

The receptionist, the same guy we saw on the hotel's very own internet pages, advised us that check in wasn't until 2pm, but that it was okay to leave our bags to ease the load on our backs. We did so and continued our trek of the Island, criss-crossing the narrow streets dotted with bridges and passing gondolas. We checked out the prices at a Gondola station and it was a hefty €70. Since it was the two of us, we gave it a miss as all the same routes could be covered on foot anyway.

We made our way back to Piazzale Roma and, from there, followed a recommended walk on the map given to us by the hotel receptionist. We covered the western side of the Island, emerging onto the river at Academia Bridge. The area just before the Academia Bridge was dotted with shops selling masks. When you went inside, you learned that these shops doubled up as masquerade studios where masks ranging from the joyful to the downright weird were being made here right now in the back rooms.

One store looked distinctly more superior than the others and, on the wall, stood a sign that proud proclaimed: 'Official mask supplier to motion film production Eyes Wide Shut'. I have seen that movie starring Tom Cruise. We looked around and it seemed that the world was staring at you through what seemed like thousands of masks hanging on the walls. After a while, we left the place, truly impressed with the array of masks they had to offer.

Since I had agreed to do this walk only if Bree bought Ice Cream, the search was on for a gelateria! Within minutes, one emerged, we queued up, ordered and took away our icecreams, sitting down on steps near one of the narrow waterways. Gondolas passed by as we consumed the quick-melting ice cream. On our way once more, we stopped at a souvenir store and bought our postcards. With just five days left on the trip, now was the time to write our messages to relatives and friends.

Shortly after crossing the nearby Academia Bridge, we made our way to St. Mark's square and, over the course of the afternoon, we visited St. Mark's Basilica and the 99 metre high Campanile (bell tower). We went up the bell tower first which offered a panoramic view of the city. Fortunately, unlike Florence, there was a lift that took you right to the top. The views were impressive, the best views being those of St. Mark's Square and the Lido. Unfortunately, you couldn't see the S-bend of the river that meanders through the heart of Venice.

The Basilica was impressive and was the only one so far which didn't charge an entry fee. Where will they get the money to clean off all the pigeon shit?, I wondered. Once you've seen a basilica, baptistery or church in Italy, you've pretty much seen them all so it was very difficult to be enthusiastic about this one although the horses from the Byzantine era were impressive.

The original church, a chapel built to house the purported remains of the evangelist St Mark was destroyed by fire in 932 and rebuilt, but the new design was considered poor in comparison to other splendid churches in the land and it was demolished. The new basilica, modelled on Constantinople’s Church of the Twelve Apostles, was consecrated in 1094.

The afternoon was draining and I felt very dehydrated – our next experience would bring us into contact with our next con. We grabbed seats at the outdoor café in St. Mark's Square. Bree ordered a beer and I just wanted a water. The water cost a shocking €4,50 for a 30cl bottle and the beer didn't cost much more. By this time, however, my mood had deteriorated with a huge headache taking its toll. I had left my sunglasses in my rucksack – which was now at the hotel – so I guessed the strong rays of the day had bought it on. Music from the Cafés own orchestra emanated into the air and I just used the time to rest. When the bill came, I nearly died from shock – the cost of two drinks was €23! Apparently, we were being charged €4.50 EACH for the pleasure of the crap orchestral music that had been played. Disgusted, Bree settled the bill and I walked away in an even worse mood!

We headed straight back to the hotel and when we reached our room, it felt like we had entered the arctic, totally unaware of how humid it must have actually been outside. Naturally, we had acclimatised somewhat, but after a while it emerged that the air condition was truly on an artic scale. We messed about with the dials to turn down the intensity and opened a bottle of Chianti and wrote our postcards.

A couple of hours passed and, after showering and shaving, I got on my clothes, ready to go out and enjoy a slap-up meal in Venice. This is where we headed unknowingly towards our next con. What happened was we left our hotel, emerged from our graffiti-emblazoned-urine-stinking alleyway onto the main street near Rialto Bridge. We decided to have pictures taken on the bridge, capturing some of the background. We continued over the bridge to the other side and, within minutes, found a number of restaurants. We decided to dine at the third restaurant we saw – let's face it, all the restaurants in Italy serve the same thing so there's no point wondering around looking for something unique!

We got the menu, ordered some wine, then deliberated upon what to eat. I decided to have the Prawn Cocktail followed by Seafood Spaghetti with Lobster and Tiramasu. We had been warned that the main course – we both chose the seafood spaghetti with lobster - would cost about €30 each. Bree had never tasted lobster before so I though 'what the hell, we're in Venice, let's dine in style.' Well, to cut a long story short - because it pisses me off even now - the meal came to a staggering €177! Apparently, the lobster weighed more – and therefore cost more – than they were letting on. I told the waiter that the cost of the meal was bloody expensive and the pricing policy was disgusting before leaving the restaurant. What did they care? They had got my money, hadn't they?

By the time we left the restaurant, it was nearly 10pm already. We decided to see St. Mark's Square at night so, with our waterbus tickets still valid, we jumped on the Number 82 from Rialto and enjoyed the slow hover down the river. Stomachs full, we disembarked from the waterbus and ambled back – via St. Mark's Square - to the hotel very slowly. St. Mark's Square was still dotted with tourists, and the odd camera flash bounced off the monuments. The orchestra at the outdoor café now had a singer and, I'm sure, continued to con customers by charging them €4.50 per person for the pleasure of the music. I felt like going up to the owner and telling he or she to stick on a CD!

We headed back to the hotel along the deserted, narrow streets. We spoke about how expensive Italy – and especially Venice – actually was. The streets were adequately lit and, once again, we followed the signs for Rialto. It was after midnight when we reached our hotel and, during the walk home, we encountered surprisingly few people. While many people view Venice as a day trip, we had the luxury of staying overnight, free to explore Venice one last time in the morning before moving on.

The evening had been quite warm and, with a heavy meal in my belly, I felt sweaty. I took a shower before turning in for what would be a restless night.