Thursday 10 October 2013

Vicissitudes of vaporetti

 I am sitting in Campo san Vio, surrounded by pigeons which have just been illegally fed by women disposing of their dry bread, and while I wait for myfriends (having escped from the dim light in my room, i amstartingonrecounting yesterday's events. We travelledbyvaporetto. Nora and John have special tickets. Alltickets must be validated before embarking. Mine was,so was John's, but Nora's got an incomprehrnsible message and allaroundus shrugged in either ignorance or indifference.the worst happened:ticket inspectorsgot on and  Nora was adjudged tobe guiltyof filing tovalidte her ticket.the animated discussion that ensued between the three of us and the two inspectors (from a Modena firm) wasvicariouslyenjoyed by all the other passengers, and ofcourseno one else'stickets werechecked. Nora had to pay afine, on the spot, of E59' which we allfeel was a bit stiff, as absolutely no  one could explain what it all meant or what she should have done.

Resolutely we pressed on. At thestation, like the myriad other passengers, we queued for our train tickets,bought them, crossed theCalatravabridge, a most disappointing and visually disturbing structure, and  headed off for the Gesuiti church, far, far away. Westoppedforlunch,T arestaurant John knew about, and proceeded to drink and dine well, and entertain the  restaurant staff and other diners with our experiences on the vaporetto.  The chef came out to listen and give his opinion (only speak English, and other diners all offered their opinions. We all had a very good time, and one of them gave me his email address for when I am in Udine.

Having yarrived at the gesuiti while it was het to reopen, we filled in the time by helping a newly wed couple from Taiwan tofind their honeymoon B and B.they wereexceedingly confused by house numbering system in Venice, which takes chaoticleaps  with nospparent sense of sequence. John took their phone and rang the B and B so that the owner came around and fetched them. We hope they have a wonderful stay.
 In our turn ee enjoyed the gloriesof the Gesuiti church.
It istime to meet nora and jogn and embark on who knows what i cannot see what I am typing. So. Tanti auguri a tutti voi.

1 comment:

Elephant's Child said...

What a glorious title. I was smiling before I opened it.
House numbering? It is probably no trickier than in parts of Delhi where houses are numbered in the order they were built - unless it is an unlucky number...