I woke up in the morning because of the powerful sun rays shining into the wagon, and checking my watch, I knew we would be reaching Venice in no time.
As I strolled out of the station, I felt as if I entered a different world.
It was warm (as opposed to where I left), sunny, and as I walked down the stairs of the station I saw a canal crossing the street, and pinkish buildings all around.
I looked around the little souvenir shops, and at a mobile flower merchant, that was promoting his goods in a Cantor masterpiece, when I realized I was standing next to my travel partner that was sleeping on his suitcase, which was on the floor. (his train had arrived an hour earlier).
My backpackers instinct led me naturally to the tourist information booth where I asked for a free map of Venice + the public transportation (bus and taxi boats).
I headed from there straight to chabad, which is about 6-7 minutes walk from there.
They were quite friendly, but unfortunately for us, spoiled with a lot of non-religious tourist, so that I didn't have to count too much on them.
They did however give us some addresses to look for cheap (we where looking for dirt cheap) lodgings, and finally settled in an apartment who had a view which was obstructed about 1 feet from our window by a brick wall.
As we knew that this trip would last more then 3 weeks, we left a little early for the summer ben hazmanim, and our first day was erev tisha beav. We knew that in the shavua shechal bo, you need to stay put, but we figured that going by train isn't called endangering ourselves.
Tisha beav was a very interesting experience, as they have beautiful shuls there (they are used with 6 month alternate), and their own minhag Venezia.
Tisha beav was Thursday, so we stayed there over shabbes.
Chabads restaurant Gamgam caters for free the shabbos meals. As the weather was nice and about 150 people joined the meal, we ate on tables on the street alongside the canal. (there is a natural eiruv
there).
The atmosphere and food were great.
After Shabbes we took a train via the city of Trieste into Slovenia, direction Ljubljana (it's capital). You really feel like entering an east European country, although, as they are modernizing, they made sure to adapt their price to the western European countries (grrrrr).
The town itself had some interesting architecture, such as a bridge that halfway becomes 3 bridges, and so on.
It was getting late, so we headed to the youth hostel. They wanted some exorbitant amount for the night, so we decided to skip the night (it was probably the other way round...)
We kept on walking for hours till my mate got too tired, and just wanted to rest. We found a little bar, asked what the cheapest to drink (usually water), and we put our head down on our hands that were on the table. (in the bored yeshiva bochur at a shiur kloli manner). the guy from the bar, understood what we were doing, so he especially set the music to full volume. As they didn't really find out to much about hard metal, but were putting on some klezmer style music, it was no problem.
Next day we took the train back to Venice. We thought to sleep on it, but it was jampacked, so we went to the restaurant wagon, and once again, ordered the cheapest drink. This time it was an espresso in a cup of about 1.5 inch height. We could catch up some sleep.
While visiting we didn't want every time to shlep our luggage along, so we made little hubs from where we explored the area.
I visited also Vicensa (people into jewelry will know it), and move south east. Then we visited Bologna, Gerona, and stopped in hour new hub Foligno. The place itself wasnt wow, but had a very nice hostel in a completely restaurated castle.
We visited from there Florence, which is very very nice, but can be done in one day
We went to see the tower of Pisa, nothing much to do there besides it.
Then we focused for about 2 days on Rome, where there is lots to see, as well as the Vatican, which is a country on its own.
We visited also the Vesuvius ( alive volcano), and Pompei, the city that got submerged by this volcano, as well as Naples.
We then moved over to the east coast, where you have Rimini, Ancona, San Marino (Also a separate country), Bari, and Brindisi.
Our train pass also covered for a free boat trip from Brindisi to Patras (Greece). (we stayed in Italy around 2 weeks)
To be continued
PS: Don't worry about chilul hashem, I didn't look like one.
