Did I mention we had an unexpected bonus train ride from Rome to Venice? It reduced the journey time from about 6 hours by road to about 4. The train trundled along at up to 250km/h. It was a Frecciargento (silver arrow) train service. We have planned to ride the Frecciarossa (red arrow) train in a couple of weeks time which I gather is the really fast one.
Anyway, on arrival in Venice it was raining and high tide and we found the water levels were too high to take the water taxi to our hotel - the boat would not fit under the bridges. So we ended up hauling everything on foot through the town by a round about route that avoided the flooded streets. St Marks square was partly flooded up to about a foot deep.
We are assured it is 'unseasonal' which is why everyone has put their wooden walkways designed to keep feet dry away for the summer!
The hotel bar and foyer were also flooded. First time I have seen a barman wearing gumboots!
Fortunately we are up a couple of floors. The gondola park is outside our window so I hope we will get warm up versions of 'O solo mio' early in the morning!
It was a very new experience walking round the alleys frequently having to double back when coming across floods. The street sellers were hawking light plastic galoshes as well a umbrellas and making a small fortune.
Some people were keen enough to just wade through it. But the water is not that clean. It is not so much the sea washing in, more rising up from through the floor bringing with it the contents of drains, and picking up doggie doo, pigeon poo, and any other rubbish. I thought wading should be a last resort!
We are all chalking ths up to experience and hoping for bettor weather tomorrow!
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