Venezia

I left to Venice from Treiste on 18th May, 2002 saturday in the early morning. Somendra Singh Parihar, an M.Tech guy from IITD accompanied me. I had met
him a couple of days prior to that while searching for some shop in downtown. We reached Venezia Santa Lucia station at 9:17am 7 minutes behind the schedule.

By the time dillu arrived from Milan at 10am, we found out the details of Eurail pass and also the places we have to see around. Just outside the station we bought the boat ticket valid for a day(for 3 people-family it was Eu23.25). We started walking towards San Marco along the small roads of Venice.

Venice is a very interesting place and unique place. As such there are no particular place to see in Venice. If I goto Agra, for instance, I can say I went to see Taj. But here, there is no such single place. Rather the whole city is something which is a must see for everyone in his/her life. Its a city built on a number of small islands and canals. If you plan to buy a house here, better sell ur car/scooter before coming here. There are no roads, cars, etc in this city. Rather its water, water everywhere. The only mode of transportation is thru water or walking along small footpath. Its very much like one of the old cities that we find in India, but cleanly maintained- of course, and all roads filled with water!!! So instead of a bike you should have a water-bike to impress your girl here!!

Well, that's Venice. Now it must be clear to you why we bought the boat ticket. We first walked till 'Per Rialto'; from there we took a motorboat to reach San Marco, along Grand Canal, where there is a church, bell tower, etc. We had nice time with playing with Pigeons. You will later see some photos with tens of pigeons sitting on me.Then we took the another boat(sorry I dont remember..Here boats are like city buses; they have numbers like our city buses; there are also 'taxis' - generally steamers though they are very expensive) to Burrano an island famous for its lace work and paintings on the houses. The much hyped lace work here is quite commonly found on road side in India. What you get in India for Rs 5, here its Eu 5..!!!

In Burrano, Somendra lost himself in the beauty of this place taking photos. We(me & dillu) waited for him more than an hour and then left to Station at 4pm as we had to reach Trieste before train strike starts. This upset our plan of visiting Murano(known for glass blowing Industry) and Torcello. Finally he also came running just before the train was about to leave and finally we(all three) reached Trieste at 9pm.

The whole expense of the trip was 15.80 Euros(train) + 7.75 Euros(boat) per head. Thanks to Somendra and the dishes he brought, we didnot buy anything in one of the most expensive cities, though I had an Ice-cream for 1.70 Euros in the evening. Ha..This excludes the 2 apples and butter(~1 Euro) which got melt & completely spoiled one of the apples (~40 cents)and my wind sheater. I cooked sambhar in the night. Dillu was very impressed by the beauty of
Trieste - beach with hills, but was unfortunate to miss the topless babes on a rainy day. I showed him the ICTP in evening & he left to Milan monday
morning after staying  here on sunday night.

Vishwesha Guttal