After much consideration we made a last minute swap in plans and decided to head north for the week. Our original vacation destination was to drive to Capri and spend the week on a beach, until everyone gave us a heavy sigh and warned us about the traffic and the mad rush for the beaches during Ferraugusto. Neither heavy traffic nor throngs of Italian vacationers sounded all that pleasing, so we began to envision a cool escape to the mountains. Being from the mid-west, both Josh and I have a strange fascination with the Alps, as anyone who recently viewed our vacation photo album can see. My friend Kelly once said that traveling is bittersweet, once you have been out to see the world, you realize there is oh, so much more to see. You can become pseudo obsessed with all of the places that have yet to be visited, and with our determination to “make the most out of living in Europe” this is especially true. So as not to totally “waste” any precious tourist time, we decided on a hybrid vacation, a few relaxing days in the nature of the Alps, followed by a few days touring Venice.
GETTING THERE:
We found a nice little national park about an hour or so north of Venice at the start of the Italian alps that would be a perfect spot for a little a nature intake. The name of the town is Belluno, population 35,000, a village compared to the metropolises that we have become used to. Our first vacation adventure is, as always, the journey. To get to Belluno, we took a bus from the Rome train station to the secondary airport, where we found tickets on a European airline (think of a Euro Southwest Airlines, no assigned seats, etc etc) to Venice for around 5 euro per ticket, yes that is 5 euro, about 7 bucks. The taxes were significantly more than the tickets. We boarded the bus at 4:45am to catch our flight a little before 8. A short flight and we were in the secondary Venice airport by 9ish. Another bus into Venice and a short walk to the train station by 10. After a quick check of the local train schedule we caught a train to Belluno through Padua, about a 1 hour, 45 minute ride. We forgot to “validate” or train tickets in our rush to catch the connection in Padua and learned that this is a costly mistake, a 25 euro fine, ouch! I am told the trip was quite scenic, but I wouldn’t know, trains knock me out cold with all of their gentle swaying and subtle click, click, clicking. Other than that, a smooth arrival in Belluno, a little town with 4 tracks at the station. Our Bed and Breakfast was just outside of town, about a 15 minute walk from the station. Our hosts were great, they spoke little English, which was great, a perfect time to practice our Italian. The husband was chatty and our language barrier didn’t stop him from giving us an hour and a half introduction to Belluno and Italian culture in general!
GETTING THERE:
We found a nice little national park about an hour or so north of Venice at the start of the Italian alps that would be a perfect spot for a little a nature intake. The name of the town is Belluno, population 35,000, a village compared to the metropolises that we have become used to. Our first vacation adventure is, as always, the journey. To get to Belluno, we took a bus from the Rome train station to the secondary airport, where we found tickets on a European airline (think of a Euro Southwest Airlines, no assigned seats, etc etc) to Venice for around 5 euro per ticket, yes that is 5 euro, about 7 bucks. The taxes were significantly more than the tickets. We boarded the bus at 4:45am to catch our flight a little before 8. A short flight and we were in the secondary Venice airport by 9ish. Another bus into Venice and a short walk to the train station by 10. After a quick check of the local train schedule we caught a train to Belluno through Padua, about a 1 hour, 45 minute ride. We forgot to “validate” or train tickets in our rush to catch the connection in Padua and learned that this is a costly mistake, a 25 euro fine, ouch! I am told the trip was quite scenic, but I wouldn’t know, trains knock me out cold with all of their gentle swaying and subtle click, click, clicking. Other than that, a smooth arrival in Belluno, a little town with 4 tracks at the station. Our Bed and Breakfast was just outside of town, about a 15 minute walk from the station. Our hosts were great, they spoke little English, which was great, a perfect time to practice our Italian. The husband was chatty and our language barrier didn’t stop him from giving us an hour and a half introduction to Belluno and Italian culture in general!
BELLUNO:Our original vision was two quiet days in a sleepy mountain town surrounded by nature. We were in a sleepy mountain town, but the nature seemed to inspire more activity than we bargained for. After a wonderful opening dinner, Josh claims to have had the best piece of meat in his life so far, and I am not far behind in my praises of the ravioli, we spend the next two days climbing up and down mountains…literally. We spent the first morning walking around the charming little town and enjoying the charming little mountain people, enjoying the most the charming lack of tourists. That afternoon we took a bus to Nevegal, Belluno’s mountain (can a town OWN a mountain)? Mainly a ski resort in the winter, people summer there and enjoy the fresh air and wonderful views. We took the ski lift to the summit and hiked back down to the resort. A word of advice, hiking down a mountain seems like the easy way to go, but descending isn’t as easy as one might think, there is a reason that people literally SLIDE down the side of the mountain in the winter, it is steep! A great day nonetheless, exhausted and tired we made our way back to the B&B where our hosts were throwing a party, and of course insisted that we stay to chat for awhile and share in some grappa. The next day was officially Ferraugusto, the 15th of August, a national holiday in Italy. Our plan was to take the bus to Marmolata, the highest peak in the area, but after arriving at the bus station, we discover that the local buses don’t run on this sacred holiday of relaxation… in fact, the town was closed up tight. Upon conferring with the local tourist office, which by some miracle was open for the hour in which we were there, we discovered that there was only one way out of town, the train, further, the train schedule that day only went to two places. So we picked one that had a lake and decided to see where our Ferraugusto fate took us. In the mountains, everything and everywhere was new and beautiful to us, it didn’t matter that much which direction down the tracks we went. We ended up in an even smaller little berg called Callazo. Very cute, an hour north of Belluno, north enough that we were pleasantly surprised to see signs pointing to Austria! Every building in town could have been a postcard of what you imagine a village in the Alps to look like, Chalets with boxes of flowers overflowing off of verandas. We found a map and decided to hike it up the local mountain. We checked out the enchanting town and then walked up the trail for almost 3 hours and maybe made it ¾ of the way up before we had to turn around to catch our train back to Belluno. It is impossible to accurately describe the true sights and sounds of an experience. The scent of fresh pine was amazing, I have always been a fan of the detergent Pinesol, and I see where they got their freshness inspiration (I know, a very bizarre thing to reflect upon surrounded by such glorious nature). For most of the way up we followed a mountain stream making its way towards the valley below. The coolness of the air around the stream was incredible; it literally gave off its own breeze, and the cold water! We simply dipped our bottles into the stream for fresh, pure mountain spring water, it was incredible! Exhausted, not well rested, but happy and full of fresh mountain air, we had a wonderful time in Belluno and regretted having to leave, but were excited to continue on to Venice.
VENICE:
We caught a direct train to Venice out of Belluno at 7:30AM, our hosts were gracious enough to prepare an early breakfast, including some of the best coffee that we had yet to experience, and which I am somewhat obsessed with trying to replicate. We were back in the Venice train station by 9am and hoped on a waterbus boat for a ride down the Grand Canal to our hotel. Italy is a tricky country to navigate. Well developed before the invention of cars, streets often lead to nowhere and seldom go in any sort of straight line or direct route. Venice is even trickier; streets simply dead in at a canal, and the only way out is to retrace your steps and find a bridge. So after a few detours, we found our way to our hotel, dumped off our baggage, and were off to see the city. Already exhausted from climbing mountains and 6AM wake up calls, we simply wandered about the first day, taking in the lay of the land and enjoying sitting in the Piazzas and people watching. A shock to our senses that had been dulled by our few days in the mountains, the pure masses of people were overwhelming. There were tourists everywhere! We met up with some friends for dinner and then took a nice twilight walking tour of Venice. I won’t bore you with the details of just how many Venetian churches we saw and toured, but the next day was filled with as much sightseeing as possible. San Marco, San Giorgio Maggiore, Il Redentore, San Margahrita, lots and lots of churches. For a break we intertwined religious architecture with art, touring both the Academia and Peggy Guggenheim’s personal collection. The Academia was amazing, but Peggy provided a nice respite with her modern pieces. I cannot believe that one person owned that much art, she had Picasso next to Klee, surrounded by Pollack, it was a dream! If I am to ever run into millions and millons of dollars, I just may decide to be an art collector. It seems almost selfish that one person could own so much, but so thrilling at the same time. After getting a pretty good feeling for the mainland in Venice, we decided to take a boat out to some of the islands in the Lagoon. We headed for Torcello, the first inhabited island in the area, the birthplace of Venice. It was lovely, but we arrived too late, and literally, the island was closed, locked up tight. The boat dropped us off and there was no one there and no churches to see, so we took the next ferry back to Borano, the next island over. I highly recommended, an old fishing village, all of the houses are painted in bright colors so that the fisherman could pick out their homes from out in the sea. It was nice to see a quieter part of Venice, a perfect way to end our day.Alas, we had a plane to catch the next morning, but first we had to catch the 4:50am water bus to catch the 6:30 autobus to take us to the airport to catch our flight. A side benefit: watching the sunrise over the Grand Canal. An amazing vacation, tired but happy, we returned home to Rome, which is a funny thought… to go HOME to Rome.
VENICE:
We caught a direct train to Venice out of Belluno at 7:30AM, our hosts were gracious enough to prepare an early breakfast, including some of the best coffee that we had yet to experience, and which I am somewhat obsessed with trying to replicate. We were back in the Venice train station by 9am and hoped on a waterbus boat for a ride down the Grand Canal to our hotel. Italy is a tricky country to navigate. Well developed before the invention of cars, streets often lead to nowhere and seldom go in any sort of straight line or direct route. Venice is even trickier; streets simply dead in at a canal, and the only way out is to retrace your steps and find a bridge. So after a few detours, we found our way to our hotel, dumped off our baggage, and were off to see the city. Already exhausted from climbing mountains and 6AM wake up calls, we simply wandered about the first day, taking in the lay of the land and enjoying sitting in the Piazzas and people watching. A shock to our senses that had been dulled by our few days in the mountains, the pure masses of people were overwhelming. There were tourists everywhere! We met up with some friends for dinner and then took a nice twilight walking tour of Venice. I won’t bore you with the details of just how many Venetian churches we saw and toured, but the next day was filled with as much sightseeing as possible. San Marco, San Giorgio Maggiore, Il Redentore, San Margahrita, lots and lots of churches. For a break we intertwined religious architecture with art, touring both the Academia and Peggy Guggenheim’s personal collection. The Academia was amazing, but Peggy provided a nice respite with her modern pieces. I cannot believe that one person owned that much art, she had Picasso next to Klee, surrounded by Pollack, it was a dream! If I am to ever run into millions and millons of dollars, I just may decide to be an art collector. It seems almost selfish that one person could own so much, but so thrilling at the same time. After getting a pretty good feeling for the mainland in Venice, we decided to take a boat out to some of the islands in the Lagoon. We headed for Torcello, the first inhabited island in the area, the birthplace of Venice. It was lovely, but we arrived too late, and literally, the island was closed, locked up tight. The boat dropped us off and there was no one there and no churches to see, so we took the next ferry back to Borano, the next island over. I highly recommended, an old fishing village, all of the houses are painted in bright colors so that the fisherman could pick out their homes from out in the sea. It was nice to see a quieter part of Venice, a perfect way to end our day.Alas, we had a plane to catch the next morning, but first we had to catch the 4:50am water bus to catch the 6:30 autobus to take us to the airport to catch our flight. A side benefit: watching the sunrise over the Grand Canal. An amazing vacation, tired but happy, we returned home to Rome, which is a funny thought… to go HOME to Rome.
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