August 12, 2006
Our train ride from Rome to Venice didn't take more than a few hours, but there's a considerable difference between riding trains from Switzerland and riding a train in Italy (especially in second class). The compartment is smaller, making every move you or your seating companions make completely conspicuous. Any time you reach inside your bag everyone watches your move, not because they have reason to think you have suspicious motives, but because there's not much else to focus on inside of the compartment. The fumes emitting from the engine seem to have a tendency to invade Italian trains, and whenever the conductor comes on the speaker to announce the next town or how late the train the train is, a not insignificant amount of crackling static accompanies his voice. It's a bit of a challenge to know what town is coming up, but at least Venice was at the end of the line.
Stepping out of the train station, Hiro and I were momentarily frozen by what we saw. No matter what I had read or heard about Venice, I wasn't mentally prepared to see–instead of a street–a wide, green canal, busy with motorboats and gondolas. I think we were so used to coming out of a station and being greeted by the sight of pavement and automobiles, the smell of exhaust, and the sounds of car horns, that it took a moment for our brains to adjust to this new environment. Instead of dodging taxis, we had to weave through crowds of tourists and vendors. Rather than sprinting across crosswalks, we climbed over bridges. Venice was certainly a different city.
We managed our way through the various walkways through the city and without managing to get lost we found the Campo Santa Margarita, a large square with plenty of restaurants and cheap food. Our hostel had seemed promising when we first entered, and it had pretty decent online ratings. However, alarms went off in my head when the hostel manager said our rooms were in a separate building across the square and down an alleyway. When Hiro and I found our room, we were pleased that we got a double with our own beds, but then we realized that we were in what used to be a kitchen. The floors and part of the walls were tiled, there were broken kitchen cupboards, and a refrigerator that looked like a wooden wardrobe, but couldn't be used for either purpose since it was broken and smelled. The bathroom wasn't much better either, as we found that the shower didn't work, and the bathtub–which had a flexible shower hose–only shot out cold water. There was also a mushroom growing out of a corner across from the toilet.
Certainly, we could have ended up in worse places, but for what we were paying we certainly should have gotten better. The rooms that other travelers had seemed better despite that they had to be shared with several others (at least they had carpet). We had a so-so dinner at a bar and ended up befriending some Australians, or rather they befriended us, and had a fun evening out on the square.
But what about the sinking catacombs under Venice? Any tombs for Crusades knights down there?
Hmm, we didn't check, but for all we know no more intrepid archaeologists will be tromping around down there in a couple more decades unless the Venetians figure something out.