Wine and Water
Venice
15.07.2009
30 °C
I was in Slovenia and thought, bugger it, I'll trip across to Venice (you gotta love it when you can say that). Catching the 2am train out of Ljbjana I arrived in Venice early in the morning.
Venice is beautiful but packed. With in excess of 9 million visitors a year its no wonder the place is sinking. After risking it all on finding a hostel in Venice I once again landed in butter, walking into a hostel in an old palace set on a quiet back canal 3 minutes walk from St Marks. It was here that I met Johannan the German. We set out looking for a bar to have a quiet three or four and ended up perched on the window sill of the Church of Santa Maria Formosa watching a performance of Vivaldi's 4 seasons. Having saved €20 and had ringside seats we decided to continue the search for a drinking establishment. Drinking red wine in a small bar off a side alley was exactly what you expect in Venice. Clichèd but fantastic.
No Dad I didn't take a gondola in Venice. Yes I know it was the best thing you've ever done. Yes I will probably regret it but I don't think I'm going to regret it €90 worth. Yes Dad I can hear that sigh.
Standing in St Marks Square a large American (could have been Canadian, they all sound the same to me) waddles up beside me, looks around, turns to her friend and exclaims 'heeeey arv seeen this place in the moooovies before I think, what's it caoolled?'. Wow there's no helping some people. On that note I've started to notice a common theme about my encounters with the citizens of the United States. To those that don't fit this category (you number 4 at this stage), sorry.
Getting out of Venice I managed to screw up the train trip. I got off the train at a half an hour stop and figured I had plenty of time to get a hamburger. Be warned when the hamburger joints in Italy say fast food it has absolutely nothing to do with the speed of your meal. Bottom line is I missed the train and ended up in Trieste where I had to catch a bus back into Slovenia, spend the night in Lubjana again before going north to my intended destination of Lake Bled the next morning. Shit happens. Just wish it wasn't diahorea.
Lake Bled is, yes you guessed it, a Lake, in northern Slovenia. Picturesque doesn't do it justice even if it does have a murky history. The island in the middle of the lake has a church on it and in the graveyard is buried Vlad the Impaler. Apparently this guy was a wealthy nobleman with a fetish for jamming sharpend poles up the bums of his victims. Anyway it's thought that the story of Dracula comes from Vlad. Charming guy I'm sure.
From Lake Bled it was on to the delights of Croatia. Home to Goran Ivanisovich and a land of brunette beauties.
