Since there is so much to relate and i dont know how to structure it, i will simply start with the whole story without much ado. Me and Manghani were the only stragglers left who were yet to visit Italy as Jis and Vivek had planned to come to Nice at the time Jai, Shivi and Dada had gone. From that time itself i had a negative feeling for italy, maybe because i had become tired after all that travelling. However i had my Eurail pass to finish (I had shelled out so much for that FIRST CLASS pass - i had to purchase the first class mandatorily at a cost of 11k INR more just because i had crossed 26 by a two week margin!) so i wanted to get over with it. We planned to leave on 29th as there was a FIA class on 28th which i did not want to miss ( yes, its right, the prof is really handsome and has a cool personality and teaches well on top of it!). On 28th i raced againest time (and my fatness) for the afternoon class only to find out the class had already held in the morning!! I had already missed his last 5 classes due to our travelling and my disappointment can be gauged by the fact that i wud have gladly rescheduled my euro trip to suit his classes had i been travelling alone! This was a first indication of things to come!
khair jo hona tha woh to hua....next day morning me and manghani set out, two cute fatsos with their rucksacks...we went to book our return tickets from pisa to nice and were told by the lady that somehow she was unable to book on that train and we would have to return via a long route (pisa-genova-ventimiglia-nice) and reach pretty late in the night. somehow it felt wrong....how can u not be able to book ticket for a train!!! and we had foregone naples (MT vesuvius, pompei, island of capri) just to catch that train. khair humne socha france mein nahi to italy mein kara lenge.....
You begin to get a feeling of india from the moment you board the train. The toilets are only tolerably clean and you can find cig butts lying around (which would be a rare sight in the rest of the trains!) The trains are quite bulky in structure unlike the sleek structures running in the rest of the EU and 15 min delay is quite frequent here (which is very inconvinient since most of the connections have a diff of around 10-15 min).
Well, we finally reched our first stop, Venezia (or Venice in english),late in the evening. The whole structure is made of 117 islands and the regular mode of transport is motorboats (proper boat stops and traffic lights are present in the canals). There are only 3 bridges across the Grand Canal, the most famous of it being the "Rialto Bridge" which is actually a very 'fachcha' bridge by indian standards but the view is great since buildings are constructed right on the banks of the canals and the water comes upto the steps!
View from the "Rialto Bridge"The narrow alleys between two buildings is also filled with water so that u cross them only on a boat! I found it cumbersome instead of romantic(as venezia is famed to be)....thoda sa bhi kaam ho to boat lekar niklo!!!! It seemed as if the town had been flooded....and i was reminded of the flood pictures we keep receiving in emails. Also the streets are full of ppl...residents and tourists alike....another reminder of our motherland!
Flooded City!!!! Romantic!!
Watery Bylanes
Boat Parking!!!
Boat Station - On the water...loosely anchored to the land and bobs with the water
Traffic Lights for Boats!!We had been advised to buy a day pass but validate it only the next day so that we could cover our whole trip ( we reached on 29th evening and spsd to leave on 1st morning). And if the ticket checker came and saw our unvalidated pass, we could always plead ignorance! As luck would have it, we got on the wrong boat, which terminated at the next stop and there the TT made us validate our pass!! Ek to sahi jagah bhi nahi pahunche upar se without proper ticket pakde bhi gaye!! Then we were greeted by the news that on 1st, the day we were spsd to leave for Rome, there was a boat strike!! and of course, in the land of floods, boat ke alawa koi option nahi (except for water taxi which wud cost around 60 euros!) well we somehow reached our island, Lido, which was around half an hour from the Ferrovia Stazione (Railway Station) by boat. During that ride, Manghani was wonderstruck by the concept of boats for public transport and wondered whether they would have lisence thing for driving boats, whether there was a concept of international driving licence for boats, whether it was accepted there or u needed to have one made in Venezia and whthr tourists could hire boats...in short he kept on asking me all about licence and traffic rules for boats...i think he had quite forgotten that i was also a tourist like him and had absolutely no idea about the life in venezia! And since dada was not with us in this trip i had to bear the brunt of Manghani's antics! BTW, the way i look at it, it is enquiring nature to look beyond the obvious and think of new questions beyond the obvious....in short a genius in the making!
Next day, we went back to the ferrovia to get reserve tickets and came to know that there was a trenitalia strike on the day we were spsd to go to nice from roma via pisa!! Two strikes in the 5 days we are in Italy....again the uncanny resemblance to india- baat baat par strike!! Well for the boat strike,we finally decided we could walk to the ferrovia from San Marco square (the famous pigeon square) since there would be guaranteed connections to the only tourist spot.We went to the Trenitalia Informazion so many times that the lady finally suggested having lunch together! Finally,we booked a later train to Roma(or Rome in English) than originally intended (the italians have a tendency to add either 'a' or 'ion' at the end of every word and btw 'grazie' is pronounced as 'gratse'). The stupid counter wala filled in the date in ink in manghani's pass which bugged us a lot since we had planned to do some manipulations and were writing in pencil (since they dont punch the pass in italy, enabling u to use it for multiple days when ideally it should be used for one day only!!). khair we went thru the usual cathedrals, had the famous gelataria ice cream and sat at the san marco square looking at the pigeons (whom manghani fed cheese so that he cud take photos but he panicked when they started perching on his hands and shoulders!).
Manghani panicking and fending off the pigeons!As we sunned ourselves in the midst of the pigeons we realised that we had too much of the italiano bakwaas and we would fight for our pass, since he anyways had no business writing anything in our pass! now this was a serious stand to take as it is impossible to have a shouting match when both sides dont understand each other!We went and told the informazion person that we had changed our mind about travelling the next day and what were we spsd to do now that he had filled in the date in our pass! the poor guy made another box for us and stamped it and we felt so victorious in finally getting smthg done in this system! (we forego many fights just because we are not able to make them understand what we are saying!! i dont know how much we will have to fight back in gurgaon just to get it out of our system!!) The rest of the day passed peacefully with a visit to Murano, the island famous for glass blowers and then the customary visit to the neighbourhood supermarket.
Oh, btw we literally gorged on felafal and kebab throughout. These are turkish delicacies the first being veg and the latter non veg and come in panini(bread) or durum (wrap) form. We dont get the veg form in Nice while the non veg form is pretty expensive so we literally "toot padte" hain jaise hi france ke bahar jate hain. These are favored by us since they are pretty spicy and are hot, the two essential ingredients which are missing in most Europoean food.
Venezia is quite similar to other european towns....narrow cobbled streets and shop windows gaily displayed....but it was much prettier due to the water all around...provided u were able to ignore the beggars and the kachra lying around.The water was not clear, rather a queer murkish green color. But the boat traffic lights and speed limits were exciting.... And the famed gondola!! They look really pretty (narrow canoe types with love seats and chairs covered in velvet and brocade) but the charges are as if they were taking us on a first class cruise (around min of 60 euros)...and u have to bargain with the gondola walahs who are generally decked up in black and white uniforms....imagine having to bargain for what is spsd to be a "romantic naukavihaar" around the canal.It was like india india everywhere!!! The famous Venice masks can be seen everywhere in all shapes sizes and colors.....
The famous "Gondola"
Venezian MasksThe Roma and concluding part in the next post....To Be Continued......
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