17. Venice and the challenge of the canals

From Como we were off to Verona bright and early to drop off the hire car. Being early on a Sunday morning the roads were quiet and we zoomed along the autobahn blissfully happy sitting on around 130km/hr! We were still buzzing with our new secret and had a blast discussing our ideas and options. I had never thought Dickey would propose, let alone had given a thought to being married, but how wrong I was! He had kept so many good secrets and actually had lots of ideas of what we should do. Thankfully pretty similar to mine!

With the hire car successfully returned to the depot we were on the shuttle from the Airport depot to Verona Railway station to catch the train to Venice. The shuttle had an accessibility lift installed and we were excited that this driver was able to use it! At the Verona station the 'Saila Blu' assistance personnel were fantastic as well as hilarious and we were on the train without an issue. 

Arriving in Venice I was totally blown away. Dickey had been years ago when on his contiki tour so had a bit of an idea of what we were in for but for me it was my first experience. We had given ourselves just an afternoon to explore prior to our flight to Dubrovnik and had expected there would be some accessibility limitations. The reality was he had forgotten some key points about the layout and the limitations were actually pretty excessive....

From the main Santa Lucia station we were out the doors and face to face with the Grand Canal. I couldn't comprehend that it was right there! The airport shuttle terminal was just over the canal, around 400m away so we decided to take our bags over there and store them at on of the bag drops - at 6 euro a piece to make it an easier transition later in the day. This main bridge was beautiful marble .... and stairs, no ramp, but we spotted a 'wheelchair accessible pod' that looked set up to get us across the river. Winning we thought! 

Venice is famous for the haggling porters and as we made our way down to the pod we had one of them in hot pursuit, desperately trying to gain our business. Quoting 20 Euro to carry 2 cases we weren't so keen. We persisted in brushing him off and as we got to the pod he continued to call out to us until we eventually realised he was genuinely trying to tell us the lift was out of order. It was indeed not operational and looked to have been so for a long period of time, but minus any signage. Other than by boat down and back this bridge was the only access across the canal from the station to the bus terminal. As the drizzly rain started to fall we rearranged our bags and got everything into two cases and as Dickey stayed minding one bag I headed off over the bridge carrying the other. Stubborn and sweating over two trips I got our 50kg of luggage over the Grand Canal, checked in to the storage locker for a few hours, confirmed which shuttle was wheelchair accessible (ACTV is, ACTO isnt!) and was back with Dickey in 40 minutes. Apparently the porter had watched this all unfold and when I headed off with the 2nd bag had offered to Dickey to carry it for free! I think his reply was something to the affect of 'you try and stop her'.

With 3 1/2 hours left to explore we headed to the tourist office. My only request had been to see St Marks square and to take a ferry down the Grand Canal. Fortunately my aim had been set quite low, because it was almost all we were able to do. The reality of Venice is that every single bridge we saw had stairs! At the tourist office we were able to get a ferry ticket for 1.50 euro each (discounted price likely due to how little you can do if in a chair maybe?!) and boarded the ferry up to the square. Despite the constant drizzling rain we had a great time watching the gondolas, speed boats, water taxis, ferry's and magnificent building that were somehow still occupied and no doubt expensive despite the obvious water damage. The traffic on the water has to be seen to be believed and despite constant close calls we didn't see any carnage. Similarly, even though I had seen plenty of pics of Venice I don't think I had actually comprehended that the only transport is by boat and that the entire city is a series of canals and buildings built on the water. It truly does have to be seen before it sinks below the rising water for good. 

St Marks was of course stunning and we took some time in the square and surrounding streets. We grabbed a last Italian coffee, which was unfortunately almost undrinkable and headed back to the ferry. We worked out that at least this one would get us to the right side of the canal to access the airport shuttle. Turns out we cut our trip a little fine, underestimating 'Italian time' and got ourselves a little stressed when the return trip took 20 minutes longer than the original. As the ferry docked we flew off, Dickey headed to the ACTV bus office to get our tickets and me to get our bags. We made it to the crowd of people waiting for the bus with 5 minutes to spare and thankfully a lovely Swedish couple jumped in to assist with getting our bags on the bus as people insisted on pushing past. The bus probably did have a ramp as advertised but it was so overcrowded it was easiest just to help pop Dickey up the step and in to the bus before it went roaring off. We weren't even sure the driver was aware we were on until he saw Dickey bounce off the bus at the airport. 

Since leaving Melbourne on April 22nd these were our first flights and part of why we had been pretty conscious of our luggage weight and not buying too much along the way. That and the fact that we were dragging it around with us every few days! Croatian Airlines were fab and despite each of our bags being 7.5kg over the limit we had no issues and our bags, complete with a few bottles of Italian wine were checked in. Boarding was also super easy and we were taken up a special lift that took Dickey, in his aisle chair, right to the front door of the little Dash 8. The aerial view of Venice as we left was amazing and really put it is perspective. I was glad to have seen it, ticked it off the list so to say, but not somewhere we would need to come back to. As far as accessibility, it really was about as inaccessible as you can get!

Our three week Italian adventure had come to an end, with our final two destinations ahead of us - Dubrovnik and Spain.

Venice - Sunday 29th May