Lyon to Venice - Venice, Italy
Venice, Italy
It's hard to get moving at 6:00AM when you have had a three-course French meal very late the night before, but somehow we manage it and get ourselves packed and ready to go. As we are dangerously close to the weight limit for our Easyjet flight, I maximise the weight that I cram into my single permitted piece of carryon, which curiously has no weight limit. Weigh-in at the airport later validates this strategy, and gets us past this bottleneck in our trip; thanks to increased airline competition in recent years, Singapore Airlines are now allowing us an American-sized 32kg per person, which will be more than enough for our return trip, and the rest of our traveling before then will be trains and buses. While Yalini exercises I head out to fetch our final French breakfast. Our favourite Lyon boulangerie is closed on a Sunday, sadly, so I go into the classy-looking patisserie next door, which is open and does have what I am looking for in the window. The shop is empty and staff out the back show no signs of interest in helping me, but after I stand there puzzled for a few seconds a petite Japanese lady suddenly pops up like a robot from where she had apparently been hiding behind one of the counters. I order two croissants and a pain au chocolate, and thank her with a well-pronounced "Merci beaucoup." As I walk out the door I realise too late that I have missed my final chance to utilise the classic French pun of mispronunciation "Merci beau cul" — after all, she was wearing a very tight pair of shorts. The car we ordered arrives on the dot at ten, and the driver proves to speak perfect English, thanks to his ten years with British Airways, and to be a major rugby fan. Despite the 19 to 26 score last night (Allez les tout noirs!) he is happy to discuss the game and compliment the All Blacks. With no traffic on a Sunday we reach the airport quickly and we're soon in the air and finally on our way to the main event of our trip: Italy! The flight is only an hour long, so in almost no time we're descending through cloud to Venice's mainland airport. On the ground we grab tickets and walk for five minutes to the ferry terminal — the island has a causeway and buses are probably the cheapest option, but when you are approaching Venice for the first time, how can it not be from the water? The day is exceedingly grey, with intermittent rain, but the dense skyline of Venice's main island soon emerges through the gloom. The ferry makes its first stop at Murano, one of the smaller islands nearby, then it drops us off at Fondamente Nove on the north-eastern side of the island. We are the only ones landing there — most of the tourists on board will be getting off later at the San Marco stop. We follow the instructions provided by our B&B host to find our way through narrow streets, "fondamente" that run alongside canals, and over quaint humped bridges with only a couple of brief wrong turns along the way. We arrive at "B&B Sandra" and meet our hostess Sandra and her husband Leonardo. After introductions we set out for a wander before it gets too late. It's already dark, and surprisingly cold, so we grab some water at a supermarket nearby and wander briefly in a fairly touristy area before returning home to put on warmer clothes and head back out for dinner. One of the things we're happy about here is that we are staying in more of a local backstreet area, and for dinner we point ourselves in the opposite direction to the touristy main street of this neighbourhood. I had noticed in both London and Paris that the Italian restaurants often have staff out front, touting the benefits of the establishment, the menu, etc. as you pass. Here, it seems like every single restaurant we see takes that approach, almost like … oh, right, duh. Like suckers we fall for the first one where the waiter talks to us, and duck in out of the cold. It's rather old-world, perhaps even bordering on shabby, and very quiet when we arrive. However it starts to fill up later on — we have heard that Venetians tend to eat quite late. Anyway the food is good. We order simple dishes, taking the chance to have a break from the mega eating fest that has been our sojourn in France. I order veal scallopina in a white wine sauce, and Yalini has a spicy and tasty penne arrabiata. We accompany this with a side order of simple grilled vegetables and half a litre of the house red, which turns out to be a soft and fruity Italian Merlot. No entrée and no dessert — we're practically on a starvation diet for the day. The meal is bracketed with complimentary prosecco and grappa, so after dinner we retrace our steps very carefully alongside canals, over bridges, and through rain-slicked streets, grateful that the rain hasn't actually come down on us at any point today. I have noticed that the restaurant, our room, in fact everything we have seen of the city so far seems just a little damp and humid. I can't imagine why. We settle in to our room, called the 'Canal Room' as our windows overlook the Rio di Noale. This canal runs from the northeastern coast of the island towards the central Grand Canal; we are about three blocks in. The windows are triple-glazed to cut down the noise of the passing motorized boats, which it does to a comfortable extent. At this time of night, though, there is no traffic, so we fall asleep to just the gentle watery slaps and gloops of the quiet Venetian thoroughfare beneath us.