Funny enough the name of this famous and incredibly renowned Venician not only lends his name to the Venice aiport, but it is also a pool game kids in Spain (I've only ever played it in Spain... But I may be totally wrong here!) in which the person who is "it" has to tag the others in the pool. No fun you think? Well, the reference to the famous explorer arise due to the fact that the person who is it has his eyes closed and shouts out "marco". The rest of the lot shout back "polo", and with that back and forth one is meant to chase after people in the pool. It's actually very fun...
In any event, and rather lame anecdotes aside, I did not manage to see the Marco Polo airport as I got into Shakespeare's beloved and Casanova's own Venice by train. Venice Santa Lucia. Beautiful name for a train station. I managed to get into town at c. 9pm last night, which was roughly 17 hours after I had gotten up in Madrid. Kind of getting used to it by now so no biggie at all... After a few hours in Milan during which I managed to enjoy the company of my good friends and former colleagues from Merrill, Giulio Torregrossa and Silvia Botto, I got on a "regional" train which took c. 5 hours to cover just under 300 kilometers (if at all!). See, here's the beauty of the interrail. With one's all-inclusive rail pass (valid in over 30 countries across Europe), one can only travel 2nd class (fair enough) and in the worst trains possible. I.e. One can't travel on a direct train between the two cities, as otherwise a ridiculous supplement (they wanted to charge me c. 15eur for it!) needs to be paid... Just a bit silly. Mind you, getting on these 1950's trains not only makes the experience exactly what I was aiming for, but it also gives me plenty of time to read, read, read and POST! ;) at the moment reading Jack Kerouac's "On the road", as some of you may have figures from the last post, but at this pace will surely be done in a few days. Also brought with me Malcolm X's autobiography... Looking forward to it! Let's not get distracted... So after getting into Venice, took a "vaporetto" (the boat-bus) to get to my hostel (which by the way was fantastic... Thumbs up, every time, to Hostelling International!). The first ride on the vaporetto was quite long (c. 45 minutes) and it was pretty damn cold... Over 30 minutes! But the views were absolutely stunning. For some odd reason, I was forced to stay on the deck (allegedly because I had too many bags!). But was glad... Must have taken about 100 pictures - got super excited. The check in at the hostel was pretty uneventful and it was a rather early night (c. 11pm). Woke up at 7am (well, more like 7:20am) after snoozing for a bit (those who know me and have ever endured my "snoozing habits"... I am sorry!) and got ready to hit the road. Was actually a great idea to have such an early start because when I got to Piazza San Marco, it was so "tourist-less" that I could not even believe I was there. Literally empty! And I even managed to sit in a bit on the 9am service (we must have been c. 10 in total) at the Basilica di San Marco (where I later had to stand in line for 15 minutes to get in). After that spent the entire day wandering around (anf even getting lost a few times) this maze of a venician urban design. Even with a map it's extremely complicated to find one's sense of direction! Again, for those of you who know me well, I've always had a special "feel" for maps and geographic orientation. Oh boy... Not today. Had a panino (yeah, these are good!) For lunch and walked some more, until I was so exhausted that I had to sit down for a breather! Overall, the city is beautiful.... Cuturally rich like no other (btw, spent some time by the Bienalle - think of La Mostra di Venezia) and rightly so did Shakespeare fall in love with the city. Nevertheless, the abundace (in fact it's more a plague...) of tourists is really a pain. Nonetheless, a must for all those couples and not-couples and even singles. Try to find a sunny day to come, I'm sure it's a lot nicer (yes... Was cloudy the whole day)!
And now over to Ljubljana, Slovenia. Didn't I say it was an Eastern European trip? ;) Fdun dfact of the day... Did you know that in Tito's Yugoslavia, Slovenia accounted for c. 20% of GDP, while only accounting for c. 8% of the total population? Talk about a regional divergence...
Stay tuned for more updates!
pv
