Ridgewood Italy Trip DayThreeFour

Day Three & Four, Wed & Thurs: Our first hotel breakfast. Can you say early? Can you say soupy scrambled eggs? Raw bacon? Teenagers eating while still in sleep mode? And fortunately very strong coffee. Back on the bus and headed for Venice.

But first a stop in Verona, home of Romeo and Juliet, for a look at the infamous balcony, to sign the wall of lovers and then a quick lunch. We also saw the famous Arena di Verona. Much like a small version of the Coliseum in Rome. Built by the Romans and still in use today for concerts. No human sacrifices anymore, although they might be re-evaluating that policy after our visit.

Venice! The magical city. This whole city is built on wooden posts out in the sea. Once one of the world’s most important cities and still one of the worlds most unique. They believe it might actually sink within the next 100 years. We had to take a boat to the island of Venice and back daily.

We spent the afternoon and all of the next day here. Easy to get lost because it is an island city with no motor transportation at all. Just narrow canals and narrow streets with tons of bridges. A maze of interesting buildings, stores and people. A quiet and peaceful place yet full of color, excitement and history. Piazza San Marco, the square filled with tourists and pigeons and of course the Basilica of St. Mark. Just around the corner the Doges Palace (Doges means Dukes), leading to the Bridge of Sighs and then directly to jail (do not pass go) for a lifetime of bread and water. Mmmmmm. You might even be sent to jail just because someone in town doesn’t like you and sticks an anonymous note through a hole in the wall of the Doges Palace.

In Venice (on the mainland) we stayed at The Mastre. This was a very modern hotel. We even ate at the hotel partly due to the fact that the coke bottles weren’t quite as slippery here. However, the telephone system wasn’t the best as we discovered the next morning when the wake up calls never made it to one of the rooms thus getting us off to a bit of a late start.

Our first stop in Venice was a tour of a real glass blowing factory. This was in the morning, and it was very hot and dry inside. Good timing because it was cold and rainy outside. We watched the man blow a beautiful glass vase and were then led into the retail store for the hard sell. They got me and I bought a beautiful red glass. I found out later that some of the adult ladies were paying more attention to his “painted on” jeans than anything else! There’s something for everyone in Italy.

Then there were the gondolas. What a wonderful and peaceful experience that was, and I think just about everyone took a ride. Perfect timing too, because it stopped raining in the afternoon and started to warm up.

We had beautiful weather from that afternoon on, for the remainder of the trip.

See More Pictures from Venice and Verona

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The hotels in Italy had some interesting commonalities. They all had a bidet, a little emergency pull cord in the shower/tub area, funny little toilet flushing mechanisms and undercooked eggs and bacon. All but the first hotel, the one with the real keys, had key cards. The difference with the Italian hotels was that if you didn’t insert your keycard in the slot on the inside of the room, your lights would go out after a few minutes. This is especially interesting when you get to your room and immediately run into the bathroom, as nature would dictate. And then, oops, forgot to insert the keycard. Complete darkness, now, where was that toilet paper? However, you only forget to do this once. I understand that the same thing occurred in the public bathrooms, having motion detectors to keep the lights on. You just had to keep moving, literally.

My favorite hotel experience was with the heating. The rooms in Venice were really cold and humid. So of course I turned on the heat. No response so I finally called the front desk (dial 9 for front desk, 0 for an outside line, of course) and told them, “I think the heat isn’t working”. She said, “I’m sorry sir, I will turn it on now”. Then within a minute the heat started blowing. Nice. Sleep in warmth… …Wake in cold. Another call to the front desk, and another “I’m sorry sir”, and then the heat started again. You just have to ask!

This was just an example of how different it is there. Overall I thought the service was inconsistent to say the least. I think we’re just used to higher service standards in the U.S. This is not a complaint, but rather just an observation. It is still a wonderful country and I wouldn't have traded my experience for anything.