Report from Italy

Two days ago we returned from our Italian minitrip, so I owe you a little blogpost about the experience 😀 Be sure to also check my gallery for pictures – there are plenty, maybe more than I should have uploaded…but anyway, enjoy!

On Tuesday we got up already at 5:30 a.m. so that we could start hitchhiking around 8 o´clock. A fellow couchsurfer/bewelcomer (Bewelcome is a similar site to CS) advised us how to get a ride from Ljubljana to Nova Gorica, the border town, as he goes this route himself pretty often and supposedly it´s very easy to do. Well, our experience was not so smooth, but in the end we DID manage :-p We first went by bus to the end stop of the line number 6, to a highway exit direction Italy, it was not too difficult to find the exact spot where people hitchhike from, there were even many footprints in the moist soil next to the road. We had a sign saying “GO” (abbreviation for Nova Gorica), so we were sure we´re doing everything the way we should be. It was a cold grey morning with a bit of rain at times, not too pleasant, and my hands were getting cold, holding the sign. We waited 55 minutes (we were thinking of waiting 1,5 hrs in total and then just opting for a bus or train) until finally one car stopped, with two Slovene guys who were luckily also going to Gorica. The journey took only one hour and we drove through some amazingly beautiful hilly landscapes, but also through heavy rain showers. We were not too happy about the weather, hoping it would get better at least the next day, as the forecast predicted… The guys dropped us at the Gorica train station from where we took an Italian bus which transferred us to the Gorizia train station, in just a few minutes (the towns are actually just one town artifically divided into two, you can´t at all see any clear border, just some signs in the streets showing you are already in another country). In Gorizia we had to wait about an hour for the train to Venice (we could probably hitchhike, but we were warned that in Italy that is not easy and also the weather was way too bad to stand outside). During the train trip there was again heavy rain, but also some sun…and when we arrived in Venice at the Santa Lucia station, it was already completely sunny and the sun didn´t leave us since that moment! What luck – we couldn´t have wished for more perfect weather! I did burn myself a little bit though 😀

In front of the station we met with a couchsurfer who offered us that we can leave our big backpacks at his place, just 5 minutes away from the station, extremely convenient (we were asking where to store luggage in a CS group on the website, where he replied to us – isn´t that amazing?). So we dropped off our backpacks there, taking just our small ones. We had a couple of hours to explore the city, as the guy needed to leave for Padova at 6 in the evening. That was great because so did we! Even in a few hours we managed to see a lot – mainly the Cannaregio district (with the Jewish ghetto, the oldest ghetto in Europe), but also a bit of Santa Croce and San Polo. I was very happy that I had my macro food from home 😀 I made simple brown rice sushi and black beans, plus I had some rice cakes – that way I could avoid buying the expensive and most of all greasy non-macro snacks :-p Nardo of course was very happy that he could be eating loads of pizza, as he didn´t bring any food with him :-p I managed to have my own food for most of our holiday – on Wednesday we had dinner at the popular Jewish restaurant in the ghetto (the food was reeeeally delicious, but – a lot of oil, my first oily meal during my 4-month healing diet…) and the next day in Padova we had lunch at an organic restaurant (I had a rice dish, very nice too, but also, VERY oily, I can´t believe how much oil the Italians use in ALL their meals! :-D).

We immediately fell in love with Venice!! I knew it would be a nice place to see, but I had no idea I would be so thrilled by the city! Of course, there are many parts which are just tourist traps, full of kitschy souvenirs and endless crowds, but at the same time there are really many quiet peaceful areas where you are (almost) alone and can fully absorb the history of this special place…At 5:30 we met up with our CS friend to pick up our backpacks and we travelled with him by train to Padova, where he went for work and where we had our CS host, for the two nights to come. Our host was a young girl, still a student, living with a bunch of other students in a shared flat. We had dinner together – my home food, plus I made a simple miso soup, from veggies that we got at a local grocer. Later that evening our host went for a party and she offered us that we can sleep in her own room, as she would be coming back home very late and her room would give us more peace to go to bed early than the common living room. We were definitely happy about that, because it was a long day!

The next day we made breakfast at the place, while everybody else was still asleep, and after 9 a.m. headed to the train station to catch a train to Venice as early as possible. Unfortunately, that day was liberation day of Italy, so the trains were very full, of Italian tourists all heading for Venice 😦 We were quite pissed that we picked a national holiday as the main day of our sightseeing, but there was nothing to be done…Luckily it was, again, mostly the main touristic sites which were heavily crowded, but there was enough of peace to be found on the side paths. Right after our arrival we bought a ticket for the water bus, “vaporetto”, which is a boat that serves as the only local transport in the city (yes, no cars or buses, the BEST thing about Venice, besides the architecture of course). We went for an about 30-minute boat ride, passing 15 stops, and we made loads of pictures of course. It was quite expensive, even this one single ride, but most definitely worth it, seeing the city from the water! We got off at San Marco, which is the most popular and significant square in Venice, with the San Marco basilica and the Doge´s palace and a bunch of museums and administrative buildings. Of course it was also the place where we didn´t want to spend much time, because it was incredibly full of tourists 😀 We didn´t even go into the basilica, because the queue in front was about 200 metres long which would mean maybe an hour or more of waiting – not worth it, in the scorching sun especially! It IS though the only church in Venice where you can enter for free, all the rest is paid…so we only saw the Venetian churches from outside. If we stayed longer, we would get a Venice card of some similar pass, but it would not be worth it for one and a half day of our stay… As you can imagine, we spent the whole day walking and walking, taking a million pictures…We managed to spot a cute little antique/art market which is otherwise not so easy to find. At the end of the day we were quite exhausted, and we were very happy to purchase some apples at a stand – it´s VERY hard to find any fresh fruit/veggies in Venice, as opposed to the hundreds of “gelato” stands…. After the awesome dinner (we sat outside next to the canal), around 7, we said goodbye to Venice and boarded the train to Padova, which was again very full.

Our host was out with her friends all day and came before midnight, so we didn´t get to talk to her much, we spent the evening planning the next day walk around Padova and reading our books (good idea to bring them!), waiting for the living room to become “free” so that we could lie down for a sleep (me on a couch and Nar on a mattress). The next morning after breakfast we sneaked out quite early again to see as much of Padova as possible – the city is rather busy, with a lot of traffic (contrast after Venice!), but the historical centre is very pretty. We saw a couple of less significant churches, the remains of the Roman arena,  the ghetto area, the Prato della Valle square (supposedly the second or third biggest square in Europe, it truly is enormous), basilica of Saint Justine (with the tomb of St Luke, the Evangelist) and most important – the basilica of Saint Anthony of Padua, which is a large cathedral containing the tomb of the saint. But for us the most interesting was the cloister complex with beautiful green courtyards, surrounding the large church. We spent quite some time exploring the maze. We also visited the central Padova market which is really huge, with a large fruit/vegetable section (we got some organic apples – hard to find organic produce here!) and an equally large indoor market with a lot of meat and dairy products and also some bakeries and typical Italian goods (Nar got a huge bread and I got myself some olives). Markets are always the place I want to see when I go for a holiday, the Italian ones are a real treat, with their beautiful artistic displays and the huge variety.

At 5 we went back to our host´s place to pick up our stuff and head to the bus station – earlier that day we asked how to get to the Padova Ovest highway exit, which was the place where we were supposed to meet our “prevoz” driver (we decided for the first time to use the “prevoz” service, which is a service run by the Slovene carsharing website, very popular thing). We had trouble getting any decent information about the best way to get there – the people at the station and tourist information offices (we asked at 4 places) told us each something a bit different. One of the ladies told us to take a bus to a bus stop from which it should be not too far to the exit, so we decided to try that as there was nothing else we could really do (googlemaps did not work for this case somehow). We went out two hours before the meeting time with the driver, so that we would have enough time to find the place – and what a good decision that was! When we asked the bus driver if the stop is near the exit he didn´t seem to understand us, so we just boarded the bus and kept looking outside to see where to get off. After maybe ten minutes a lady came up to us asking us in English where are we planning to go, that she overheard our question to the driver. She informed us that we are already quite far from the highway exit and that the stop where we want to get off is WAY too far from the exit, not a walking distance at all. We were a bit terrified. But it turned out that she was really an angel sent to us from above – like in a fairytale! She offered us a ride by car to the highway exit, so we got off with her at one of the coming stops and she took us in a few minutes to a parking lot at the highway exit, the only place where it was possible for us to stand and wait for the guy. We were incredibly happy about our luck, because otherwise we would have ended up in some village very far from the highway with no option of getting to the right place, because public transport simply does not come close to the exit! We had about an hour to wait, but that was ok, at least we knew that we are where we´re supposed to be. Around 8:15 our driver arrived, with 2 more people in the car, who were also using the prevoz. What bliss to be sitting in a comfortable warm car, heading to Ljubljana!! Of course, we decided that we WILL NOT agree anymore to meet up with somebody on the highway, that was not a good idea! 😀 But well, it worked out…in a bit over two hours we were in Ljubljana, safe in our home! It was a great great holiday! Just too short – we sure want to see more of Venice one day…