There's a lot to say about the last few days. Who knew travelling could make someone a busy person?
I'm currently writing from Francesca's B&B although there in no actual Francesca that runs the building. It's lost in the middle of the labyrinth that is Venice. Clean, basic, convenient, and inexpensive, it's our second night staying there... but it's been a long road...
The plane ride was littered with turbulence. Two movies were shown, both of which I only rarely caught glimpses, every time I took my face out of the plastic-lined "air-sickness bag". When supper came around on the plane my own came flying out... I spent the last 3 hours of the ride swinging between semi-consciousness and a heavy sleep resulting from the exhaustion of puking out my own guts. I managed to take breakfast with me off the plane, but was distracted from it as we realized this was the first time we were seeing real palm trees. Needless to say we spent a few minutes giving them hugs and taking our picture with them. The train ride to Pisa was long, but we met very nice people, in particular an old woman and her 5 year-old grandson, who agreed to teach us some Italian. We arrived in Pisa at 8:30 pm, and headed to Samuele's home.
We had reserved his guest room through CouchSurf and I was a little bit worried. The man himself, and his roomate Daniele are wonderful people, but there was only one single bed. I was lucky to get the bed... but maybe not... I may have gotten bitten by bed bugs while I was asleep. I have 2 lumps on each hand and one on my face. Hoepfully they'll go away and it's just the hypochondriac in me that's panicking.
The next day we visited Cinq Terre. We took the train to the first village, walked around, hiked in the hills to the second village, Vernazza, and then took the train to the 4th town because the passage was closed, finally walking the Via Del'Amore between Manarola and Riomaggiore where we took a train back to Pisa. We saw the local pests: small lizards, and also the local flora: bamboos and giant lemon trees. It was warm, sunny, and a very tiring hike. Near the end of the day, the ticket booths for the train were closed. We hopped on the train anyway and were given a ticket... for hopping on without a ticket. The conductor had pity for us tourists and told us that 10 Euros were enough (fines are normally about 50Euros) because women from Montreal were beautiful.
We slept in Pisa a second time, and the next morning enjoyed a walk to the Leaning Tower and its surroundings before taking a train to Venice. We bought a calling card there that we later realized was a hoax...
In Venice, we were shocked at the cold weather and the structure of the streets. We got lost. When we finally found the B&B we decided there was a need for some relaxing, so we set out to find a place to sit in the sun. We found ourselves on a table by the canal with free home-made wine and three galant waiters around us. Americans sat on the table next to us and with a long chit-chat we left with free passes for the boats, and nearly more maps than we could carry. We left a little tipsy for all the alcohol "on the house" and with our bellied quite content. We took the most beautiful boat ride along the canal during the night, ending up at Piazza San Marco to find gorgeous architecture and a full orchestra for a free concert. We slept very well in Venice that night.
Today we spent our last day in Venice. We went grocery shopping (the Sicilian oranges are to die for) and took a boat around the remainder of the Island. Once again, we ended up at Piazza San Marco. This time we visited the cathedral. The gold mosaics were jaw-dropping. After lunch by the bridge of Sighs, we walked back to our B&B, taking our time. Along the way, we stopped to feed pigeons, we ate delicious gelato, did a bit of window shopping, saw the Rialto bridge, and we were happy.
This is our last night here in Venice. Tomorrow we join the class in Roma and head off to Acquapendente. I'm sad to leave this place so early...
more later!
WORD OF THE DAY: POMODORI
this means tomatoes (one tomato is ismply pomodoro). A kind lady at the market told us that the Italians used to have yellow tomatoes (pome d'oro= apple of gold) but that they were breeded out by the red ones. She helped us figure out in Italy, you are not allowed to handle the food at a market... we learned the hard way...
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