We’ve just arrived in Venice, Italy. Well, almost. We landed at Marco Polo airport. Now we’re trying to get to Venice. We took “the long way” from the airport to the city. Now we really just want to find our hotel, check in, and conk out. But it won’t be easy.
Night was approaching. It was getting dark. The situation was tense, especially for me. It had been my idea to take a water bus from the airport to the city. Unfortunately, I hadn’t planned on our travel-weary condition, or the slow, multi-stop crawl of the water bus.
We’d get off the water bus near St. Mark’s Square. Then it’d be up to me to find our way through a labyrinth of alleys and passageways to our hotel. In those pre-GPS days all I had was a small map that was hard to read, even in good light. And now it was night.
The Situation is Tense
I had spent the past 30 minutes trying to memorize the path. Just north of the water bus stop, there should be a small bridge over a canal. We’ll cross the bridge to get to a street named Calle Vallaresso.
Once on Calle Vallaresso, we’ll head in, moving away from the Grand Canal, descending into the depths of the city. Here’s the rest of the route…
- Follow Calle Vallaresso until there’s a little kink in the road.
- At the kink, Calle Vallaresso becomes Calle Frezzaria.
- Stay on Frezzaria until we find 5 streets coming in from the left, one after the other.
- The fifth one should be Calle del Frutarol. We take it.
- Follow Calle del Frutarol until we come to a canal named Rio de Barcaroli.
If we make it this far, we’ll go over a bridge that goes over the canal. Just after the canal, Calle de Frutarol has a kink in it. The canal and the kink will be landmarks for us to know that we’re on the right path.
- After Calle de Frutarol crosses Calle Minelli, it becomes Campo San Fantin. We stay on it.
- Campo san Fantin dead ends into Calle De la Verona. Here, we turn right.
- Follow Calle De la Verona down a short distance until it crosses Ramo Ferretta.
At this point, our hotel should magically appear on our left. If our hotel does not magically appear, we continue on. But if we come to a canal named Rio Tera del Assassini, I know we went too far.
This is the path I had committed to memory as we crawled slowly slowly slowly toward Venice in the water taxi. See what I mean? The situation was tense.
The name of our hotel is “Hotel La Fenice et des Artistes.” It’s small, but we’ve seen a picture of its facade, so hopefully we’ll be able to recognize it.
Time to Go
We disembarked onto dry land, grabbed our luggage, checked our bearings, and prepared to set off on foot. The little bridge was there, just like on the map.
I wasn’t expecting to see street signs, but to my surprise, we spotted a plaque high up on the side of a building near where we were standing. It said, “Calle Vallaresso.” We were right where we were supposed to be. Bravissimo!
Calle Vallaresso is one of the nicer “streets” in town, not that it’s anything like what we would normally call a street. It was well-lit. That was a good thing.
We headed in, following Calle Vallaresso until we came to the kink. The kink was right where it was supposed to be. We continued on, deeper into the depths until we came to the series of 5 streets. We took the fifth one.
This passageway was poorly lit and narrow. There had been quite a few people on Calle Vallaresse, but on this street we were alone. Oh well. Nothing to do at this point, but continue onward, eh?
So Far, So Good
We went over a bridge and came to the jog in the path. So far, so good. We continued until we came to a dead end, where we turned right.
We came to a little square, with pathways coming in and going out in several directions. Uh-oh… This wasn’t ringing any bells in my dog-tired, memory-saturated head.
Either the people who made the map had messed up, or I had reached the limit of my memorization capacity. I wonder which one it could have been?
I had to think. Hard. I decided this was where the hotel was supposed to “magically appear on our left.” Remember? But when you’re in a square turning round and round, your “left” doesn’t mean as much as it used to.
We picked one of the pathways and went down a ways. Didn’t look right. We went back and picked another one, went down a few steps, and there it was, as if by magic, 20 feet away on our left — the Hotel La Fenice et des Artistes. Made it! Mamma mia!
To be continued…
