The Cruise: Trieste

 After Croatia we spent one more day at sea. Days at sea are great for the guests and hell for the crew. All the guests are on the ship all the time, which means everyone wants to eat all the time. And drink. The bars are crazy. The pool is mobbed. Darwin and I were content to hole up in our cabin and sneak out to the dining room every so often.

 

The following morning, we put in at Trieste. Final disembarkation was the next day. Our cruise was almost over!

 

We hadn't explored Trieste the first time we were there, thanks to the cruise's shortfalls in communication. I hadn't signed on for any excursions this time, but the main town was within easy walking distance of the ship and I wanted to go have a look. Darwin said he was tired and not really interested, so I went off on my own.

 

I discovered that although settlements at Trieste date back to the stone age, and that although Trieste has been an economic powerhouse for centuries, its buildings are very new. By European standards, anyway. The grand government buildings that make up the town square and the nearby cathedral were built in the mid-1800s. A huge church up the block was built in the 1950s. A famous hotel in the 1920s. And so on. I didn't find anything older than 1830. I'm sure somewhere in Trieste are buildings considerably older (the famous Roman theater, for example), but I didn't see any.

 

The buildings in question are quite grand, though. So much ornamentation! So many Roman statues! I took to taking photos of them so I could show them to my mythology students later and play "Name That God." The ringer is a statue of a half-naked man. It's only when you look closely that you realize he has a lion skin wrapped around his waist, which means it's Hercules—a demi-god.

 

The town square also houses an impressively ugly fountain. No, seriously, it's awful. It looks like a cement mixer pooped and someone stuck some random statues into the mess before it dried. It dates back to the 1750s, which means the designer was probably tarred and feathered instead of put into the stocks, but he deserved whichever one happened to him. After it went up, the thing was moved four times, probably because no one wanted it in their yard. It's been subject to vandalism several times, including from a slightly deranged man who eluded police long enough to climb to the top and knock the head and arm off one statue with a lead pipe. If they'd been smart, they would have let him finish the job.

 

That said, the rest of Trieste was delightful. I explored little streets and unexpected open-air markets and wandered through a church where the pipe organist was practicing and gave money to street musicians. A man was panhandling in mixture of English and Italian with a Swahili accent. I gave him a Euro. When we went our different ways, I wondered at the long, long series of events that had to flawlessly come together so that a man from North America might meet a man from Africa in an Italian city and exchange a coin minted in Greece. 

 

Eventually the sun grew hot and I grew hungry, so I ambled back to the ship for a shower and a change of clothes. 

 

And then the packing began. Our main luggage had to be in the corridor outside our cabin by midnight so it could be bundled off to customs for inspection. Meanwhile, disembarkation was at about 8:00 AM. So everything had to be done up the night before. This took considerable time, but at last we had it all ready, with only a few bathroom items left out for morning. 

 

In the morning, we had breakfast and left the ship one last time. The stories of Darwin handcuffing himself to the balcony rail and howling that he wasn't leaving, not ever, are slightly exaggerated.

 

We weren't actually leaving Italy just yet, though. We had one more night in Venice. We got on board the cruise's shuttle—yes, there had been one from Venice, too, but no one told us about it—bound for the Venice airport. By now we were experienced Venetians and we trotted straight to the vaporetto taxi and our final night in Italy.

 

The Cruise: One Last Stroll, One Last Meal in Venice

 

The vaporetto dropped us off in our old neighborhood Dorsodura near Zaterre. Our flat was only a couple blocks up the canal from our previous one, which made everything so much easier—we already knew the area.

 

If you visit Venice, find a place to stay near the Zaterre station in Dorsodura. It's easy to get to from the airport—the vaporetto takes you right there for 15 Euros—and all the good stuff is within easy reach. St. Mark's Square is either a 20-minute stroll or a ten-minute water bus ride away. The Guggenheim is in Dorsoduro. There are great restaurants. The Grand Canal is an easy walk away. But the best part really is that ease of access from the airport. Large parts of Venice aren't accessible by vehicles, and we saw lots and lots of sweaty, unhappy tourists towing huge piles of luggage through the streets because their hotel wasn't reachable by car or boat.

 

Anyway, our new studio flat was quirky fun. The flat is accessible through a little green door  that opens into what looks like a short staircase upward that ends in a blank wall. When you push on the wall, though, the wall rises up. It's a secret door! When you finish climbing the staircase, you're in the flat proper. The secret door drops back into place behind you, and you see that it's become a bench with a little rope handle at the bottom so you can lift it back up when you want to leave again. The whole thing is a clever use of space.

 

We arrived a few minutes after check-in time, but a cleaning lady was still finishing up from the previous renters. She spoke very little English and we spoke very little Italian, but we were able to communicate perfectly well: "We leave our luggage and go eat?" "Good! Bathroom first? It's through there." "Thank you, yes."

 

Our favorite restaurant was only a block away, and yes, I'm afraid we've become the kind of people who have a favorite restaurant in Venice. Over a luscious lunch of lasagna (me) and roasted chicken (Darwin), we canal-watched and figured out how to get back to the airport tomorrow. We'd come to Zaterre from the airport twice, but never done the reverse. The schedule we found online said the boat came every half hour, so we should be safe, but tomorrow was Sunday, and sometimes public transit runs a different schedule then. We couldn't find anything that said so. Still, we crossed our fingers.

 

I had thought to Do Something on our last day in Venice, like go to a museum or tour a cathedral, but after two weeks of many such things, we were in information overload. Neither of us was in the mood to do anything that required thought or concentration. So instead, we went back to the flat (the cleaning lady had gone, leaving the smell of vinegar in her wake), showered, and went back outside, intending just to stroll the lovely Venice streets.

 

There was one tiny snag—the sun. Boy, was the sun strong! And Dorsodura faces west, so our street got the full brunt of not only the sun, but the sunlight that reflected off the canal. It was like walking into an oven lit by klieg lights.

 

Fortunately, we only had to dodge down a side street. The moment we were out of the sun, the temperature plunged and the air became soft and pleasant. We wandered the wonderful little streets and alleys of Venice, often hand in hand, noticing details that had escaped us before—this church was actually over 1000 years old, that block had an actual lawn, this building had the remnants of old carvings high up on the walls. And the insanely romantic canals everywhere. Really, Venice has become my favorite European city. (Sorry, Heidelberg!) 

 

When we got hungry, we stopped at another canal-side restaurant and shared a prosciuto pizza. Did I mention how romantic all this was? Well, it was.

 

We climbed into bed in our secret Venetian flat. What a fine day!

 

In the morning, we got up early, rolled our luggage down to the Zaterre stop, and the vaporetto zipped up right on time. We endured the usual long lines (I love Venice, but its airport is on the bottom of my Nice Place list), boring waits, and one sprint for a connecting flight, but at last made it home. It was the best vacation ever!

 

We're already planning the next one.