May trip to Rome and Venice (continued)
(Continued. Start here: http://blogs. turpravda. com/Gatto/88240.html)
OTHER TRANSPORT
There is no car transport in Venice. Or at least we didn't see any cars there. And what to do with the car there, if you don’t really ride it on the water, along the streets, which are all pedestrian there, too? Unless you put it under the window and admire it from time to time until it is taken apart for parts or stolen (and shoemakers are such a people: if they want, they will steal it by water). Therefore, the main mode of transport there is steamboats, water taxis (expensive, bastards, a trip from St. Mark's Square to the station will take as much as 6 tweets) and, of course, gondolas, to which I want to devote a separate chapter.
The fact that there are enough gondolas in Venik, I think, does not need to be said.
Gondoliers do not pester tourists, but if you turn to one of them, he will certainly promise to give a tourist a ride along the most beautiful route (gondoliers there, as a rule, perform excursion functions, not transport ones). Such an excursion costs 80 and lasts 40 minutes. The gondola is designed for 6 people, in addition to the gondolier. So if you cooperate with someone and climb there with six of us, then it turns out not so expensive. For the sake of interest, we asked one gondolier if he would take us to the station from one place in the center. He figured it out and said that for the dough it would turn out 120. Well, we, in turn, figured that the road would take an hour and then we risk missing the train, and giving such an amount - the toad is strangling, so we decided to walk to the station , and at that time, alas, they did not ride the gondolas.
However, if we go there next time, we will definitely go for a ride and we will certainly not go there for one day, for which this wonderful city cannot really be looked at.
VENICE STREETS AND SIGNS
As already mentioned, Venice is best viewed from the side of the canal or from some bridge, preferably higher. If you just wander through its narrow streets, you will not notice anything special: just a beautiful Italian city, but nothing more. By the way, do you know why in many European cities the streets are narrow and very confusing, and not in a box, as, for example, in Pindostan? But because these cities were built in ancient times in such a way that in the event of an attack on the city, the enemies would get lost there. In our time, it is not the aggressors who suffer from such "mazes", but tourists. But we must pay tribute to the "authorities" of Venice - there are signs on almost every corner, following which you can easily get to the station, pl.
Saint Mark or elsewhere. If there were no signs, getting lost there would be like 2 x 2.
We drove back in much the same way as there, except for the fact that this time we got places not in the toilet (and if it were in the toilet, we could have changed somewhere, since there were almost no people) and on this time I took from the bar (he was either in the 3rd or the 4th car) three small bottles (0.375) of wine for 9, thanks to which the return trip was even more pleasant. : ) We left at 19.25 (this is the last train from Venik to Rome), arrived at 23.05.
Day 6, Thursday, 9.05. thirteen
TOUR BUSES IN ROME
I wrote about tour buses in detail in my report about Athens. True, there were only 2 types of them: “yellow” and “red”, in Rome there are already 5-6 types of them. As the African-Italian from whom we bought tickets at the kiosk explained to us, the routes of all buses differ, but by about 90% match. But the prices vary considerably.
For example, the same "red" bus (Bus Touristique) cost five per day, regardless of the number of days. On other buses, significant discounts were provided if they were taken for 2 days or more. In the end, we chose the ROMA CRISTIANA bus, the prices for which were as follows: 20 for 24 hours and 22 for 48 hours. We took 2 tickets for 2 days. The Afro-Italian explained to us that the validity period starts from the moment of the first landing. At the entrance, you are given headphones, which you can then keep as a keepsake (or you can have more than one pair if you wish). The headphone plug must be plugged into a special socket provided with each seat, and use the arrow buttons to select the desired volume and language of the tour. This bus runs, in my opinion, with an interval of 20 minutes.
Having reached the Vatican on a tour bus, we were stunned by the queue that lined up there. Remember, I said that the line in Kozlik is a fie compared to the mausoleum?
So, here we can say that this is a goat's queue - ugh compared to the vatican. There are also all sorts of guides and all arriving tourists are interested in where they are from. There were more Russian-speaking guides there than ants in an anthill. But when these guides approached us and asked where we were from, so that they would quickly fall behind, I “forgot” all the languages u200bu200bthat these guides can know, and answered them in Lithuanian, the remnants of which I still had in my head after the trip to Vilnius, then in Greek. The guides weren't friendly with these languages (well, at least we didn't find any of them) and were safely behind us.
To stand in line, of course, we had no desire, so we looked at Vatnik only superficially - the part where you can go without any tickets. But this part is quite beautiful: palaces, fountains there are all sorts ...
And when they began to return, one Banglash stuck to us and somehow endeared us to him. Maybe because he didn’t immediately rush to find out where we were from, but simply offered a tour in English, and then, seeing that I speak Italian, he switched to Italian. And he added that they arrange excursions without any queues. And we even went to his Banglash office. On the way, I wanted to buy a bottle of beer in a tent, but he told me that I didn’t need to do this, because it was expensive, and showed me a store where you can buy beer much cheaper. As you might guess, it was the store of his compatriot. Then Banglash nevertheless asked where we were from, and, having learned that we were from Russia, he said that the next day there would be an excursion in Russian, tickets for which it is desirable to purchase immediately, otherwise it is not known whether they will be the next day (well-known wiring).
In English - there are no problems with this, he says, but in Russian these excursions are held less frequently. We said that the Russian language is not important for us, so we will come back the next day. May be. But still they didn't come. Because they decided to go to the sea.
On that day, the idea occurred to us to send postcards from Rome to relatives in the Tula region and to ourselves in Moscow. We bought several postcards at 0.50 and the same number of stamps at 0.85 (this is the value stamps needed to send postcards to Russia, as the postal clerk told us). As is usually done, we stuck stamps on postcards, wrote the addresses in Russian, duplicating only Russia in Latin, and on the postcard that was sent to Moscow, also Moscow, and threw them into the mailbox. So we are still waiting for these very postcards. I wonder why regular mail completely stopped working? It seems that the load on it in recent years should decrease significantly, because.
Now the vast majority use soap for communication (not in the sanitary and hygienic sense, of course, but in the computer sense), Skype, ICQ and mobile phones. I remember that in the era of the Early Post-Soviet era, when few people were familiar with soap and the Internet, I corresponded with Europe (including Sapog) and two Americas, and then letters from Europe to Moscow and vice versa went on average 2 weeks, and in the case with the Americas, this process took about 3 weeks. Very strange.
SOMETHING ABOUT LOCAL PHARMACIES AND DRUGS IN GENERAL
On the evening of that day, we, once again passing by the Spanish Square, decided to sit on the already mentioned stairs. And since the weather that day was sunny, my wife's face was slightly burned, and she asked me to buy burn cream. I went to a nearby dredge and asked the apothecary if they had anything for sunburn. As a result, I bought some kind of cream for as much as 17.50.
Some expensive medicines they have there. Or maybe they just bred me like a sucker, as they bred in Moscow dredges: as an antispasmodic, they will probably offer no-shpu (it costs more than a hundred), and not drotaverine or spasmol, which cost about 20 rubles (although, what in these two drugs, that in no-shpe the active substance is drotaverine in the amount of 40 mg). The situation is similar with imodium (250 - 300 rubles), lopedium (about 50 rubles) and loperamide (about 20 rubles, or even cheaper). There are also such pairs as mezim - pancreatin, nootropil - piracetam, etc. So if a corrupt doctor prescribed some expensive drug, then before buying it, it would not be superfluous to find out its active ingredient and see if there are any cheaper analogues Fortunately, almost everyone now has access to the Internet. The only thing I do not advise is to buy acyclovir instead of zovirax, although the active substance is the same here and there - acyclovir.
Zovirax, as practice shows, is somehow more reliable. Okay, end of digression.
Day 7, Friday, 10.05. thirteen
JEWISH QUARTER
If you draw a line on the map from the "cat's square" (Piazza di Torre Argentina) to the entrance to the bridge connecting the nearest (not opposite) bank of the Tiber to the island, then this will be the diagonal of the rectangle in which this same block is located. He is also easily recognizable by the Hebrew signs and dudes in yarmulkes. The girl from the Irish Pub advised us to definitely visit this quarter and dine at one of the local restaurants, which we decided to do that day. We chose the one that we liked the most. And the restaurant turned out to be not the cheapest: we ordered a portion of artichokes there (4.50; I wanted to try them for a long time, but they turned out to be so-so), two servings of pasta with seafood (12.50 each), and a bottle of Israeli wine (22). Then I ordered myself another beer (6.50) and my wife an espresso (1.
fifty; coffee of this in a cup was a sip, but it was very strong). They didn’t leave a tip, because they also brought us bread for a triplet, which we didn’t order, but this, as I already mentioned, is perceived by us as a service already included in the bill.
OPENING OF THE SWIMMING SEASON
Since the weather that day was quite hot, we decided to go to the coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea, and directly by metro. We drove for 40 minutes or something like that. True, we hesitated with something before and reached the sea only by 7 pm, and during this time the sun managed to hide behind the “eternal wanderers” (as Mishka Borzoy called the clouds in his poem of the same name) and the temperature outside was clearly below 20°C. In short, not very suitable weather for swimming. Well, can you stop a Russian person? How is it: to come to the sea and not swim (well, if you don’t mean, of course, some White Sea in January)?
In general, quickly throwing off everything except my swimming trunks, I climbed into the water. And the water, I must say, was noticeably colder than in August Greece or Spain (and sometimes the water in September Moscow was warmer). But I climbed there anyway and even swam a few tweets meters. The body, by the way, got used to such water, and it felt so good ...Then I saw how a girl approached my wife, who decided not to swim in such extreme conditions, and began to try to explain something to her. My wife is not friendly with foreign languages at all, she has other professional strengths, but she understood this girl in general terms. When I swam ashore, my dear wife told me that the girl told her that it was dangerous to swim at such a time, there were no lifeguards, so there would be no one to save in case of emergency.
LOCAL RESTAURANT
Having changed in a shed with changing cabins and toilets (by the way, quite cultured), I myself approached this girl, who turned out to be a barmaid from a local bar, and started a conversation with her like this:
(me) Good evening. Good vodka!
(D) Good evening. Oh, you speak Italian! But you still don’t need to swim now: there are no lifeguards, so in which case no one can help.
- Oh, come on, I'm from Russia, I also swam in not such conditions. And cold water won't scare me.
- I understand, but still I am responsible for this, so I would not want any accident to happen.
- Understand. But, as you can see, I've already got out of the water, I'm not going to climb there anymore, so I hope it won't happen. By the way, when does the swimming season open for you?
- It is already open, it’s just that it’s already late, there are no rescuers ...
- All right, - I say, - pour me a glass of whiskey and cola.
My wife also ordered a cocktail for herself. Then another bartender came up and offered me a “killer” cocktail: I don’t remember what he mixed with what, but one of the components was Curacao liqueur, because the cocktail turned out to be blue. Strong. In general, a cocktail for Russians. Well, since Bukhara usually promotes appetite, we soon moved to their own restaurant, where a rather pleasant atmosphere reigned. Well, they ordered oysters there (small, 3.50 apiece), all kinds of fish dishes and seafood. As a result, they sat well, for as many as 172. And they also left them a chirp for tea.
PAYMENT OF REQUESTS
When we arrived at the rooming house, Sashka offered us to pay the same fees that I talked about at the beginning of the story. No, he says, you can, of course, pay tomorrow, but tomorrow there may be a lot of people for eviction, you will have to stand in line ...Or maybe she was just afraid that we would quietly hit the road without paying anything?
And what, it would be so fair: we already left a big amount of dough there, so to take requisitions from us too - the face will crack. Although, of course, we would not have done that, because in this case, Sasha could have problems later, and we ourselves, perhaps, too. Paid, in short, 42 and received the appropriate receipt.
Day 8, Saturday, 11.05. thirteen
TAXI TO THE AIRPORT
Our flight was in the morning, so we had to get up early. In order to save money, they decided not to call a taxi, but instead go to the airport by metro. However, on the way to the station with two suitcases, we had the thought, they say, what if this subway is now crowded, we will push there, it’s not a fact that we will find seats, in general, why the hell is such happiness? Therefore, passing by the parking lot of taxi drivers, we nevertheless decided to use their services.
Services, as promised, cost 48, and the taxi driver was caught - such a yap: they talked with him about politics all the way: about Brezhnev, Gorbachev, Mussolini, Hitler, etc. Although politics, to be honest, is not my favorite topic.
When we were checking in our suitcases, the employee at the counter asked us if there were things in the suitcases for which VAT was refunded. These things (shirts with jackets) were folded in one suitcase, so they took another suitcase from us, and with the one with jackets and shirts, they sent us to put a stamp on the check in a special office, where we also had to stand in line. Then we were finally stamped, we put the check in a special envelope, threw it in a box, and I still hope to get back this same VAT, which, by the way, is 21% in Boots.
FLIGHT BACK
This time the flight was delayed for about an hour: at first no one was put on the plane, then hand luggage was tamped down, which did not fit into the luggage racks and under the seats. Russian tourists - they are the same, stocked up in full. Even when checking in luggage, there were tourists who had an overweight of 2 or even 3 times, and for each kg of such an overweight it was necessary to pay a certain amount. In the same place, tourists discussed who bought what and where, and also noted that only Russian buyers hang out in shops like Prada and Dolce Gabbana.
Otherwise, the return flight went almost the same as the flight there: the same bottle of Dutik whiskey (only cheaper this time), the same lack of food on board the Saira. True, this time we were more fortunate: at that time we were fed with meat and fish, the meat, of course, ended, but the fish remained. However, fish is still better than scrambled eggs or pancakes.
There were no problems with the passage of passport control and getting luggage.
Well, actually, our trip ended, which we were generally satisfied with, despite some disadvantages, such as checking into another hotel, city extortion and unstable weather. It will be necessary to definitely go to Sapozhok again: there are so many other beautiful and interesting cities there, and we can say that we didn’t really see Rome and Venice, because one week for a country like Italy is very little .
On this, dear readers, I say goodbye to you and wish you all pleasant travels!