Between the thunderstorms, my first day in Venice

13.06.2015

Just a short one this time. Arrived in Venice on a hot summers afternoon after a tiring trip from Florence, and fought my way through hordes of day trippers to get on a vaporetta boat to take me to the boat stop that was closest to my accommodation. I'm paying $57 a night, and I am 50 yards from two bed and breakfast places that are charging $179 and $229 for smaller rooms. I am very happy with my room which is really comfortable and spacious, and the kitchen and bathroom are spotless too. Last night after checking out the local small supermarket for bits and pieces I just crashed. Racing around for a couple of weeks took their toll. Woke up this morning to crashing thunder with heavy rain, which lasted for at least three hours. About lunchtime, when the rain stopped, I headed out to find my bearings. I saw a really good pasta shop on Tripadvisor and wrote down the directions to get to it from here. I did the same for a couple more places that I wanted to see, using google maps for directions and in the following three hours I found out why Venice is so easy to get lost in. Firstly the names for the streets on google maps are often different from the names of the streets on the street, so it becomes a guessing game ( is this street really called that, and if I take it will it lead to the place I want ). It makes getting around interesting, especially when some streets have had their name plates torn off. The pasta shop was a no go ( It was closed on Sundays anyway I found out later). The reason I couldn't find it was that one of the streets I needed to go down to get to it was an alleyway with a locked gate at the end of it (obviously only for residents) so google really fucked that one up (sorry mum). Anyway you can see what I passed on the way. Tomorrow I'm off on a three hour walking tour, that is providing I can find the meeting place, but that's ok I've got it sorted on my google maps lol..... PS There's been another three hours of thunderstorms and heavy rain this evening...

3pm Saturday dropped off at my stop in Venice