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Mark at a snack bar in Roma Termini, working on his journal (if you’re interested, there’s also a slightly larger version) |
The flight from Newark to Rome was pretty much uneventful and unremarkable. There were no screaming (nor even crying) babies, but even so I got very little sleep. Mark seemed to be more successful at this, but later claimed not to have gotten much shuteye either.
Passage through passport checking and customs at Fiumicino went fairly well and fairly expeditiously. Then, as soon as we had found an ATM for loading up on Euros, we walked to the train station for getting to Roma Termini.
We had a good wait before we could get onto our train to Venice, so we found a snack bar on the level above the concourse, and with a good view of the crowds below. I would have had more pictures than the one at the top of the page, but as soon as I snapped this, an employee of the snack bar told me not to use the camera. Nervous about nefarious use of hte snapshots, I suppose. But I got the same request, only more peremptorily, in Los Angeles when I was at the foot of a tall building pointing my camera straight up. Such are the times we live in.
The train from Rome to Venice was surprisingly full, at least in the first-class section. Seats there are reserved, and soon the other two seats at our table were occupied by an American couple from La Quinta, not far from Palm Desert, who were very pleasant and chatty. We unfortunately kept nodding off during their conversation, though, each of us apologizing every time he woke up.
We did manage to take a few snapshots out the window. This is never very satisfactory, but if you look closely at the building on the hill (big image, small), you see that it’s partly ruined. Otranto is nowhere near the Rome-Venice line, I believe.
On our arrival at Santa Lucia station in Venice, we just wheeled our bags around the corner to our very nice hotel, the Hotel Abbazia, converted from a nineteenth-century abbey of the Barefoot Carmelites. After having a shower and a nap, we asked the concierge for a restaurant, and he promptly gave us one name only, of a very touristy place on the Grand Canal named Trattoria Povoledo, where I was only moderately impressed with the food.
We started off with caprese, and both had gnocchi with scallops. I followed with a secondo of cuttlefish in ink with fried polenta. The gnocchi and scallops were fishy-smelling, and I found the cuttlefish rather saltier than it had to be. For dessert, we had a crème brulée that was floury and oversweet. But we were so tired and hungry that we weren’t in a mood to cavil. I’m doing that now.
We walked back to the hotel and slept soundly till eight.
Next day’s pictures, previous day’s pictures. Return to the central Italy page; to the central travel page; to my home page.
