Italy - Venice

I took a super-fast and comfortable Eurostar Italia train (oh how I love my Interrail pass) to Venice Mestre station, and catching a glimpse of the amazing landscape I then had to trundle back out on a lowly local train to a small town I was staying in outside the city. The centre itself has very few hostels and little budget accommodation to speak of.

A Gondola on the Grand Canal. I love being original.

After an exhausting walk in 40C temperatures across the 'small' town to find my B&B, I recovered in the air conditioning of my room and headed back into Venice. It really is like in the postcards - walk straight out of the rather grotty train station and you are greeted with a movie-like view of the Grand Canal stretching out in front, packed with canal boats and gondolas and lined with historic renaissance buildings.

Torre dell'Orologio (Clock Tower)

I took a waterbus, the best method of travel in the city (there are no roads or subways at all), along the length of the Grand Canal to St Mark's Square, the hub of Venice. The famous Basilica was nice, although there is little to see thanks to the darkness of the interior and is perhaps best viewed from outside. The square itself and the surrounding area is a wonderful place, and made all the more nicer with the total lack of traffic jams (or in fact, any cars) that somewhat spoiled Rome.

Entering St Mark's Square

Venice is one of those cities with not so many specific 'sights' to see, and is best experienced just wandering around and getting lost. And getting lost is quite easy actually, and happened to me a great many times, but every time it happened I would just discover another amazing area around the next corner. The maze-like array of narrow alleys and passages means it's never difficult to find somewhere away from all the tourists.

A typical 'street' in Venice

Once again the weather was against me, with temperatures climbing well above 40C and rapidly becoming unbearable, even with the shade afforded by the narrow streets. I was forced to head back to my hotel room and relax in the comfort of my own air conditioner (which really I came to appreciate), until the evening.

I love exploring all the narrow alleys. Even the creepy ones...

The city is beautiful at night, although even easier to get lost in, with little street lighting available to read maps. More than once I would think I was nearly back to the train station and then come across a complete dead end, requiring much back-tracking. Still, it was a lot of fun!

The grand canal. Again.

However, leaving Venice was not a pleasant experience. The Italian railway system, in all its wisdom, decided to go on strike the day I needed to leave Italy. I was assured by two separate ticket offices that the strike would not affect international trains, and so happily boarded the departure to Slovenia. About half way to the border, it simply stopped and everyone was told to get off - the driver was now on strike and it would go no further. Typical! Stuck in a random town in the middle of nowhere, that didn't even have any bus services, I luckily managed to meet up with two fellow Brits in the same position as me and together we managed to get the last operating train back to Venice and spent the day trying to get some useful information out of any railway staff, which was not forthcoming. Find out in the next post if I made it to Slovenia...