14/7 - Hellish Night, Venice
Our trains on this crazy night: 2052-2252, 2334-0039, 0318-0611.
Dogs were the noisiest and worst tempered in Italy in July of all the countries and times I was in Europe.
On the train from Parma to Bologna, I couldn't sleep. It was hot, crowded, cramped (not necessarily the same as crowded) and smelly (there was an Indian man beside me who didn't smell of the strong soap you don't find any other ethnic group using). A lot of other people couldn't or wouldn't sleep, and so were in the corridor making noise. In the end I got about 3-4 hours of sleep that night.
Trenitalia often gave pro gorma apologies for the delay and inconvenience. Why bother? As they say in Slavery, "Sorry no cure". This is especially so as they didn't seem sincere about their apology, since on-time trains were the exception rather than the rule, and they didn't make any effort to improve (the alternative is that Italian trains used to be EVEN worse - horror).
Italian electricity sockets are really screwed up. Wanting to be different from the rest of Europe, their sockets and plugs have 3 holes/prongs rather than 2, which means their plugs are not compatible with the sockets in the rest of Europe. You would think that 3 hole sockets would accept 2 prong plugs, but many of the power sockets I had access to didn't (and none accepted my power extension's prongs). Some of the 3 hole sockets had enlarged top and bottom holes (viz the centre ones), presumably to accommodate plugs from the rest of Europe, but even this didn't always work. Perhaps the best part was that not all Italian 3 pin plugs fit in Italian 3 pin sockets. Whee.
On reaching our Venetian hostel on the mainland, we had a shower and slept for about 2 hours, before heading out to Venice proper.
I saw a casino named "slot folies". A folly indeed.
Sundresses look very cooling.
S Simon Piccolo, 1738
Down Grand Canal in Water Ferry
Canele di Cannaregio
1 of the 118 islands of Venice
A toilet I saw on Murano cost €1. It was part of the official Venice-wide toilet cartel which extorted tourists by charging that uniform price; buying the Venice card got you free entrance into the toilets, so you can tell how finely they got the art of fleecing tourists down to. I'm quite sure Venice has the most expensive toilets in Europe (xxoos found a €1,10 toilet in Luxembourg City, but the toilets I found there were all much much cheaper).
Damn Chinks.
"In this shop we don't sale Chinese glass!!! (Our production) Whoever sells Chinese objects kills Murano!!!" - maybe they can stop making glass commercially and set up more toilets. It might even be more profitable.
Murano
Masks. Besides glass, Venice is also famous for them.
Glass chandelier in Murano church
Of course, there were glass-making demonstrations. When glass is hot it looks like it has the softness of jelly.
Dao glass man
Glass shaping
Glass shaping
Information panel: "The master, ie the head of the team, blows and/or shapes the glass piece: thanks to his sensitivity and artistic ability, he always succeeds in obtaining the desired shape and size." If not, they can always sell it for a 50% discount.
Murano
We then went to the island of Lido, where they filmed a movie called "Death in Venice". There were many beaches, and we walked down one of them doing data collection. To wit, how many women were sunbathing topless, and what ages they were. No, I do not have any pictures of this, not even in Secret Diary #3 (or an offline collection) - I was strictly engaging in data collection. The information gathering session lasted from 4:23pm to 4:40pm and covered a long stretch of beach (not all densely packed, though, but the large area made up for it).
Contrary to stereotypes about decadent Europeans with loose morals (in contradistinction to those imbued with Asian Values), we only saw 4 topless sunbathers, despite the beach being host to many people: one 30+ year old, one 50+ year old, one 60+ year old and one 40+ year old. My definition of topless sunbather was quite strict - lying prone and untying your bikini string didn't cut it. Perhaps it says something that there weren't any 10+ or 20+ topless sunbathers - it would've affected the incentives of those seeking a peek. What was interesting, though, was how many pre-teen girls with nothing to show and showing it (ie running around topless).
There was a topless girl of maybe 8 who was on the swing for the longest time. Andrew and I combined didn't have as much stamina as her - she started before we did and ended after we gave up.
Andrew and topless young girl on swing
Me and topless young girl on swing
The seat was too small for me. Ouch. And I got dizzy.
The guidebook recommended Lido but there was nothing special about it, besides huge beaches so expansive that the large crowd could not fill it (but beaches are not my kinda thing).
Lido canal
I always had the impression that a gondola was like a punt - you stuck the pole into the bottom of the river to propel the vessel. Yet all of the gondolas I saw were propelled by oars.
We made the mistake of taking boat 1 back from Lido. It took forever since it stopped at every single stop and was crowded, probably for the same reason.
I wonder if everyone enjoyed the heat. If I grew up in a temperate clime I might.
There was a statue of the Virgin Mary at a circus. Wth. (I can't remember what this scribble referred to)
