Pedaling Across the Agean: Day 16- Parma and Arrival in Venice

We left Santa Margherita Ligure early for the 5 hour drive to Venice. We made plans to do a slight detour to visit Elena, Brendan’s friend and co-author, in Parma. The weather was beautiful with low lying fog in the valleys giving the morning an ethereal quality.

We met Elena near the main square and she then helped us find parking nearby. Not so near that we didn’t get a chance to walk through a few neighborhoods and parks on the way to the piazza.

This area was surrounded by a cathedral and baptistry, and more importantly, a great coffee shop.

Elena was pretty sneaky and since she knew the waiter, didn’t let me pay. We had great cappuccino and croissants, and had a chance to catch up with Elena, whom we hadn’t seen for about a year.

She also gave us a first hand account of her and Brendan’s brush with death in Jerusalem last week. They were in the main bus station in Jerusalem (they were delivering a paper at an international space conference there) when they heard shots and screaming. They were ushered into a closet with a few others for their protection and were in there for about 45 minutes until IDF soldiers came and escorted them outside. It was a pretty hair raising experience.

Getting out of Parma was a bit like our experience in Genoa. Big time GPS failure (probably should also blame the navigator-ME). We kept getting close to the highway only to be sent a different direction by Mr. Garmin. We finally (after about ½ hour of driving around the farmland surrounding Parma), we turned off the GPS and followed the signs to the highway. Finally we were back on track.

The highway system in Italy is pretty neat. When you get onto any of the A-roads (similar to our interstates), you take a ticket and then pay when you exit the A system even if you change highways. So you can drive from one end of Italy to the other with only one toll stop.

We made it to Marco Polo Airport in the afternoon. The airport is only a couple of miles from Venice, but since Venice is an island with no bridge for cars (a few years ago a railway connection to Venice from the mainland was accomplished), easiest access to Venice from the airport is by water taxi. We left our tandem and 2 larger duffels at a storage facility at the airport, dropped the car off, and grabbed a water taxi to the tune of 120 euros!

There was a waterbus that we could have taken, but the trip was going to be 60 euros for the four of us and take about 1 ½ hours. We had enough traveling for one day. The taxi took 25 minutes. This should have clued us in to how expensive Venice was going to be. It was pretty cool, though, going from the airport to our hotel by boat-door to door.

Our driver negotiated the narrow canals past other taxis and gondoliers,

under low foot bridges

and under the famous Rialto Bridge across the Grand Canal.

I have to say that Las Vegas did a pretty good job of recreating the feel of Venice in the Venetian. Finally made it to the water entrance of our hotel, the Saturnia.

The hotel was one of the old grand hotels in Venice and had a lot of the “old world charm”.

The rooms, though also had “old world charm”, ie. pretty small, but adequate. What we soon found, though, as we ventured out the front of the hotel on Calle Larga XXII Marzo, was that we were perfectly situated in the thick of things, less than a 5 minute walk to the Piazza San Marco and the Doge’s Palace, the iconic landmarks of Venice.

We walked a bit in this area and then had an early dinner (for Italy) at around 7. As the sun set, the temperature dropped and our Floridians and Jeri found they needed down outerwear. Thank God for down sweaters!