To Venice (via Bergamo & Milan)

At 4.30 am we got into the bus and reached Milan and got a bullet train (Bullet train was not in our plan, but got a chance to travel in the bullet train too :) ) and then a local bus to reach Hotel Palladio. 

 We went to our rooms to refresh while Sunitha’s brothers’ family joined them. We got fresh and then the six of us headed to explore the city of Venice – one of the most beautiful cities that is shown in movies and hurray!!!!!!  I am getting a chance to visit this place in reality :) :) :). I was little tired but really excited to see the city on water. We found that traveling by bus is the best way in the city. There was a bus stop right opposite to the hotel and from there we got a bus and went straight to the Venice central place. There was a bridge connecting the road to the water. We had a few snaps near the bridge and started our voyage. 

It was really a beautiful place, true to the style depicted in the movies.  We actually wondered about the architecture of Venice city – the city on water. Imagine the engineering abilities in those days itself if a major part of the city was built on water.  There were many buildings out there and a huge open area for small stalls. There were squares at a few places which serve as good shopping arenas. Around mid day, we thought of taking a ride on gondolas which I will cherish for the rest of my life.

I don’t know why this reminds me of a song in Telugu – ‘goruvanka vaalagane gokulaniki…’ starring the great ANR and Mohanlal. I always loved watching this song and the least had I expected that I will have a wonderful opportunity to go on a ride on gondolas and see the places that were shot in this song. Of course, there are other movies that are picturized in this area like ‘Nenu, naa rakshashi’, but this is a very special song from my childhood memories. After this experience, we stopped at a few places for shopping and bought a beautiful mask as well :). When the sun was setting we had snacks at the bakery adjacent to the bridge. And then went to the hotel by bus.

Next day all of us started to the water area again after having our breakfast. I should say we were damn lucky this day… why?? You will know in a minute. We boarded a bus that goes to the water place and somehow bought tickets though for a while we felt it was not necessary because the previous day the driver himself was not interested in issuing tickets and told us to board the bus and sit, but this day we had our guiding angels with us who prompted us to get tickets. On our way, suddenly some official got into the bus and started checking tickets. We had ours, so we had shown them. There was only one lady in the entire bus who did not take the ticket. She almost cried and was pleading him to let her go and she would pay for the ticket. But that guy was very adamant. Guess how much he charged her as fine??? 200 Euros!!! And we were 6. Had we not taken the tickets, we would have to pay him 1200 Euros!!! We were still not out of the shock of losing 200 Euros per person while coming to Venice. This actually proves we were not all that unlucky :D. So remember guys – when in Venice, buying tickets is mandatory if you are traveling by bus!!!  This day Koti & gang did not have many plans as Sunitha’s brother was leaving for London that day, so they chose to spend some time together and relax. We had been to a glass museum. There were mirrors worth a few lacs there. So we did not dare spending much time there as a small mistake could cost really huge!!(This reminded me the quote we generally see in the Archies - Good to see, nice to hold, once broken considered sold ;) )

Then me and Vamsi roamed around the place and had good site seeing. Now starts the adventure part. We boarded a bus which is supposed to go Hotel Palladio. But the driver forced everybody to get down from the bus saying the bus will take a different route. Then we walked to the next bus stop and waited there for some time. But I was really afraid of the place as there was not a single person around and the place was very bushy and it was already getting dark. So we decided to walk further as Vamsi was very confident about the route as he always is and I doubted the route as always. After a while I could successfully convince him (with my fear, hehe) that we were not heading in the right direction. But we had no choice but to go to the next stop. This way we had walked for about 2-3 bus stops and the bus stops there are not as near as they are in Hyderabad!!! I was going into a panic mode now as it has turned completely dark and there was nobody seen on the roads. Sparsely, a few vehicles passed by. Finally, we thought of waiting for a bus and got one after a long time as it felt. And guess what!!! We were actually going in the right direction and the next stop was Hotel Palladio. We were totally exhausted and decided to go to bed very early as we had to leave for Florence the next day.

Next morning Vamsi, I, Sunitha and Koti started for Florence/Firenze – the city built by Michael Angelo.  The stay was a different experience for me here. It was not a hotel. It was something called a “bread and breakfast”. That means apart from accommodation they also offer you breakfast but this will be prepared by you only. We had our breakfast and started exploring the place and got into a hop-on-hop-off (see my previous blog to know what it is) again. We stopped at places where many wonderful statues were built. We had seen a few and bought a few souvenirs and started for another place. We were in the travel bus for most of the time as we thought there were not many places worth spending time. But the travel itself was really beautiful mainly because of the path the bus took. It was very green and flowery and the atmosphere there was very mystic. The road was not plain. The final point was on a higher altitude and so the bus was going up. Added to this, there was a very fresh breeze and we felt rejuvenated by the time we were back.