Venice & Stranded in Calalzo

This past weekend I took a trip with Tn, Alma, Jess, and Julee to Venice! We left on Friday and came back Sunday night. Venice was incredibly beautiful. It was really crowded with tourists though, so much so that we almost couldn't move on some streets. The weather was also crazy hot, it was probably 80+ degrees on Saturday, and I was dressed for cooler weather, whoops! Everything in Venice is overpriced too, but even with the crowds and all it was still totally worth it. It felt like a theme park sometimes, but no...it was the real thing!

On Friday we got to the hostel first, then went exploring. We found the Rialto Bridge (Venice's main bridge over the Grand Canal), St. Mark's Square, saw the Klimt show at the Correr Musem, shopped for a bit, had a little aperitivo, took a gondola ride (expensive and short but still awesome), had dinner, and walked around at night. Venice at night was so beautiful!

Saturday was pretty busy too. In the morning we climbed (well, there was an elevator) the Campanile Tower, the highest point in Venice, to see the whole city. We walked around more (so much walking), went to the Accademia Gallery where there were a lot of Tintorello, Carpaccio, and Titian paintings, and after lunch took a boat to the island of Murano just off the coast of the mainland. There are two main islands - Murano, which is known for its glass (Pandora bracelet wearers - Murano glass beads should ring a bell), and Burano, which is known for its lace. And what's funny about Venice is that all the transportation is actually on the water, so the boat we took was really a bus. The boat bus. By the time we got to Murano, we were all exhausted from the heat and walking, so sat by the water for a while and then just strolled around the island. It was a really calm and quiet place. Went back to the mainland for dinner, then we (minus Tn, party pooper) went to see a Vivaldi concert at the San Vidal church. The orchestra was incredible! They performed the four seasons, and then songs by other composers from Vivaldi's time. Then it was time for bed for me because I had to wake up at 5am...

Right, so on Sunday I decided to go to Auronzo, the town my family is originally from, and where I still have a few distant relatives. Since I have to go through Venice to get there, Sunday was my only opportunity to go. Except, there is no direct train to Auronzo, it's a train to Calalzo, then a half hour bus ride from there, which was fine because I knew the bus schedule and exactly what time I needed to be there. So I got to Calalzo around 9:40am, and the bus I needed, line 31, wasn't until 10:10. At 10:10, a few buses came and went, all other numbers, no 31, so I started to panic a little because Sunday in Italy means everything is shut down and there are less public transportation options. And my bus never came. Finally I asked the next bus driver who came by what happened, and he said that  on Sundays they combine the lines, so I should have gotten on the 33...but how was I supposed to know that?? I was so mad at myself because I watched the bus I was supposed to get on come and go. I could have been on it. The bus driver gave me a business card for a taxi, but I didn't have enough cash on me for a cab ride there and back, plus it seemed a little sketchy (the card didn't say taxi on it, just had a cell phone number). The bus that I missed was the one and only bus to Auronzo until late afternoon, when I would already be on a train back to Venice.

So there I was, at 10:30 in the morning, stranded in Calalzo, a town I wasn't familiar with, where I was the only person around, everything was closed, I had no food and just half a bottle of water. My train back to Venice wasn't until 3:00pm. Almost five hours to do...what? That was sort of my breaking point I think, but then I collected myself and decided to just start walking. Because, the plus side was that I was in the middle of the Dolomite mountains (part of the Alps), in an unbelievably beautiful place, that looked almost like how I imagined Auronzo would look. So I pretended I was really there. I started walking and found myself on a hiking trail which led into a pine forest in the mountains, with a lake in the center. I spent all my time wandering and hiking through the forest. There were a lot of families with children by the lake, but farther away I was completely alone, and it was so calm and relaxing, I think it was actually something I needed. The air was really clean and pure, and I laid in the sunshine for a long time and tried to see all positives about the situation. Now I have an excuse to go back to Auronzo and Veneto one day, hopefully with the rest of my family. It was a rough day but also, in retrospect, an experience I'm glad I had.

 

 

Finally, I took the train back to Venice, power walked to a church I wanted to see with Titian's most famous painting, then met my friends back at the train station to head back to Rome. What an adventure.


(And yes, I have been productive in studio, I will update with scans and photos in the next few days!)