Getting Paddled in Venice with Google Maps

Venice or the Venetian in Vegas?

When one normally thinks of Venice, they think of gondolas, canals, romance, and maybe pasta.  One rarely ever associates the lovely city with harsh brutal winters and homeless on a rampage, but as my story will illustrate, both of these can happen.

So word of advice, do not get to Venice after business hours.  The sleepy canal village falls to sleep, shocker, after dark.  Making navigation next to impossible.

Speaking of navigation, google maps works pretty well in Europe, until it doesn't.

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We took an evening train into Venice from Rome.  When we got to the train station in Venice we took a bus over to the touristic Venice, because this is where we had booked our hotel.  Once we got off the bus, we turned on google maps and tried to locate our hotel.  Carrying a heavy duffel bag and a tote, my shoulders were aching, not to mention I was exhausted.  My friend also had a rolling bag and a handbag to carry.  Rolling bags are a little tricky to navigate along the cobblestone, but definitely beats carrying all that weight on your back.  The hard part is when you have stairs in your trajectory, which I assure you, there are plenty of in Venice.

So we would walk a hundred yards, and the blue ball would disappear from the map, and tell us to walk into the water at other times!  After speaking to hotel receptionist, we decided to follow a different route.  We learned at 3 am that everything in touristic Venice is connected by ferries.  We took a ferry to the stop we deciphered from the map the receptionist had drawn from us.

Looks pretty in the day time...very confusing at night time!

Once we got off the ferry, we were smack dab in front of a huge church and alleyway that stretched on forever.  After inspecting all of the forks in the road, we chose the alley.  The thought did cross our minds to sleep in that church in 15 degree F weather (Celsius = pretty fucking cold).

We called our hotel once or twice.  A sleepy woman who spoke no english came to the phone, and offered no assistance to our american cries.

Finally we found a recognizable landmark on the receptionists' map and found the lovely bed and breakfast.  We earned that sleep!

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We took the train out of Venice again.  We recognized that we were carrying too much weight, and needed to mail somethings home to get it off of our backs, literally.  So I went searching around the train station and finally found a post office, I was overjoyed.

As I approached this building, right outside the station, I noticed a homeless woman sitting outside of it.   She was talking to herself, and maybe me.  I couldn't make out the Italian hours of operation listed on the door, as I looked past her.  I made a circuit around the fascade of the building.  As I was returning to the station, she jumped up and ran after me with a large piece of plywood.

I picked up my pace.  Not quite running, not quite walking.  She paddled me so hard on my bottom with that plywood that my butt was sore the next day.  I started to sprint away, as she continued to utter profanities at me.

St. Marco's Square

There was a crowd that had gathered.  Joy!  A gentleman even let out a chuckle.

I sheepishly returned to the train station and explained the impossibility of what just happened to my traveling companion.

Lesson learned:  pack light

Lesson learned:  don't hover around homeless people, especially in a foreign land when they are screaming at you

Enjoying Venice, finally!