We're using the trains a lot and it took a minute to figure out how to validate a ticket. First you buy a ticket (from a machine), then you go to a separate machine to validate it. Validation makes the ticket usable for some period of time. Our ticket said "vale 6h da convalida", so we looked it up and that means good for 6 hours.
I stopped by an ATM, which by the way, most people call them cash machines or cash points. I'm not sure what kind of machine it was but the English translation was pretty funny. My two choices to get cash were were "flash people" or "public services". I laughed, had no idea what that meant, cancelled and went to a different ATM (which was much more "normal"). Flash people, really?
So I think we all know that Italy has gypsies. We had at least 3 people walk up to us and give us a rose, or try to, anyway. The newer trick is an exploding pig thing. It's about the size of your palm, made of some elastic goo substance, and they throw it at a piece of cardboard on the floor. It splats for 10 seconds into a flat goo pancake, then it slowly regains it's original pig shape. They do sell them but it also seems to be a cover for selling other things.
There's nothing in the world quite like the feeling of walking the narrow alleys in Venice, it's just plain awesome. The passion of the people jumps out at you, especially in comparison to the UK. They're not quite angry here, but it certainly borders on it, they like to get their point across in a passionate way. For example, I was taking a photo for a group and an Italian got fussy at me for standing in the middle of the alley. No big thing, he just had to make his point.
We made it to San Marco square and all the great sites there. We crossed Rialto Bridge several times too. We then scouted out a "good" Gondola guy and took a great tour, at a good price (€80).
Oh, we stopped at a random place for lunch. It was recommended by the yelp app. It was fantastic, check out the view:
Unlike London, Venice does NOT shut down at 6pm. In fact, I'd say it's just getting started at 6pm. You know Italian meals take 2-3 hours and by 9pm people are ready to party. We're old, so we headed back home about 9pm, but the energy of the city was great. I had good ol Lemoncello at dinner and wow was it strong, so I was ready to sleep :)
The next train was 2 hours away, so we asked locals for a taxi. We were pointed to Piazzle Roma where we easily grabbed a taxi. It was pretty expensive, but we had probably the nicest taxi driver I've ever had, it was a great conversation. He taught us some Italian, local culture and just nice small talk.
Ok, going back to sleep now! Ciao!
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