Pages - Menu

Saturday, August 29, 2015

Ciao Venezia! - A short story about that time that we braved the angry seas of Venice




It was a typical Friday afternoon as I rushed out of the office at exactly 5:30 (okay, it was 5:28 shhh) and made an 11 minute 15 second record bike ride from my office to Mick's to (literally) throw my bike inside the door and RUN to Farringdon. We made it there with 2 minutes to spare before the train, which would get us to the airport at least 1.5 hours before the flight. We RAN down the stairs expecting to find the train about to leave. Instead, we arrived to announcements about the cancellation of OUR TRAIN. $#&*!!

The next train was in 35 minutes and would get us to the airport with less than an hour before the flight. We've been in this situation before, so we were still sure we could make it if everything went correctly from here on out, but there is never any promise that it will.

We made the flight. Which in the end, was delayed about 2 hours anyways. Wish I could have known earlier, I wouldn't have had to ditch out of work 2 minutes early and RUSH to Farringdon, ripping a hole in my new flowy top by getting it caught in my bike tire.

What we didn't make it in time for was the water bus from Marco Polo airport to San Marco Island. We arrived about an hour too late to catch this shuttle. We saw some buses outside the airport and thought maybe they run a shuttle to Venice from the airport. Nope, we were informed that you can not take land vehicles to Venice, you have to go by water bus or taxi. We were directed towards the water bus area, which made us think "oooh! maybe it IS still running!"
We got to the waterbus dock to find zero boats of any sort.  We did come across a group of travellers who had all grouped together because of the same problem we were facing. One man spoke italian and visited Venice often, so he was able to find us a water taxi and negotiate the trip for us all. The agreed terms were 140euro to take all 8 of us to stop at Morano, Lido and San Marco.

Here's where I think I should mention the weather. It was thunderstorming. Not just little flashes of lightning and small thunder rumbles. It was the kind of lightning that turns night into day for a flash of a second and thunder that sends your cat under the bed. If you know anything about the sea, you'll understand why this was just a smidge bit scary. The sea was ANGRY.

Here's a shot I got from the boat right as lightning struck. At the time of the picture we had actually pulled over into a small protected canal after being drenched at sea and a little bit scared for our lives.



And here's our water taxi pulling away after dropping us off safely on San Marco.


Daytime view


Here is Mick in front of our adorable little hotel. The dark square behind him is like a door to the canal.


And here's what it looks like in the day time










This was a sight for tired eyes


And we slept! Photo dump to come :)

-Brit