Once we made it to Bologna we were supposed to only have 3-5 minutes to get to the next train, but since we got on one 10 minutes early we thought we should be golden. We walked down to the schedule and realized that the one we thought we needed to get on didn’t exist at 9:28am, but thankfully I spotted that it existed at 9:56am. YAY! We hopped on that one, I made a friend with the snack cart guy (picture and all) and were on our way to Venice. This is where it starts to get really dicey. So our hostel (Camping Fusina) is not IN Venice…it is on the mainland, there was only one hostel on one of the islands in Venice. There are two train stations in/near Venice…Mestre and Venice San Lucia – I kind of had directions from either and we could have gotten off at either train station. I decided we should get off at the first one because there was supposed to be a bus from Mestre to Fusina for 1 Euro and lets us off right at the hostel – good deal right? At least opposed to going into Venice city, somehow making it to the other side with all our crap and without a map to a ferry that would cost at least 5 Euro. I thought it was a logical choice…apparently not. After waiting for an hour for bus No. 11, Holly went to ask some more people about it – guess what? They cancelled bus No. 11. Um really? The only one that ran to Fusina that we could find was bus 16 which, according to the timetable on the bus stop window, only ran late at night (it was 1 in the afternoon).
So plan B started to commence as outlined above. We were going to jump on some other train going to S. Lucia and figure it out from there. Easier said than done apparently. We got on the wrong train, again, but this time it was really the wrong train. After it was speeding along for a good 20 minutes and we hadn’t gone over water, I began to get a little concerned. I told Holly we needed to get off at the next stop and figure it out because it definitely wasn’t right. And oh boy, was it not right. Good thing we got off when we did…definitely the wrong direction. So how did we get on the wrong train? The screen we looked at in the beginning was different from the screen by the train but, still being rushed it, we went with it. So now we were somewhere…S. Dona di Pave Jesolo?? I don’t know, but good news, there was a train back to Mestre and TO S. Lucia 20 minutes from then (it was now 2). At this point I was more annoyed and in pain than stressed out and Holly was at the point that it was so bad it was funny….so she started laughing, and her laugh is contagious to it lightened the mood a bit.
Random train station we got off at...
Finally on a train that was actually going to S. Lucia, we realized that Italians must be pretty lax about tickets because not once in our train hopping did we get our tickets checked. Totally fine by me. For basically the 5th time we arrived back at Mestre, stayed on the train this time and went over the water (WOO) to S. Lucia. Once there, I had iffy directions I had written down last-minute before we left – I didn’t actually think we would need them…good thing I tried). We ended up not using the directions much and just walked in the general direction the ferry was to leave from. Aching shoulders, feet and emotions we FINALLY made it to Zattere at 4:36…guess when the ferry left? 4:30. Good thing they are every hour. We were hot and tired so we indulged in some gelato while we waited in the shade…Kit-kat and straciatella (? Basically chocolate chip) for me, yum. When 5:30 rolled around we went up to get in line and board when we noticed that everyone had tickets…except us, for which we assumed in our delirious state that we just paid when we got on. A woman near us heard us talking about how everyone had a ticket and said that we needed to go to the ticket office – behind the white building behind us. She said we might be able to make it if we hurried…so hurry we did, right past the ticket office. Not just a little bit past it, a significant distance past it until we came to another ferry dock ticket office…oye. We turned around and when we were almost back to our dock (boat had left) we see a blatantly obvious sign, complete with a picture of a ferry, right outside a door that I had definitely glanced at. FAIL. Tickets in hand we headed back to our spot in the shade and waited another hour…
Going over water!!! SUCCESS!
Right outside the S. Lucia train stations...now to find the ferry...
6:30 – finally on the ferry to Fusina. It was a good ride over, relaxing and the breeze felt good. Arrival to Fusina was a little strange…everyone just started walking the same way. We followed the crowd despite thinking to myself that everyone couldn’t possibly be going to the same place – they were. Camping Fusina is a campground, with room for tents, drive in campers and little camper cabins (what we had). We stayed a place like this twice in NZ and the whole idea of the place plus actually being here made me ridiculously giddy. I’m super excited about this whole campsite thing for some reason, I think it’s great, haha. We have a little camper thing that is literally 2 rooms with 2 beds in each – its cozy. Showers, bathrooms and sinks are a little ways down from us and there is also a restaurant, mini market and bar-type place. I’m totally happy with it, that it’s pretty cheap and that we are here. WOOHOO!
Waiting for the ferry again, this time with tickets...
ON THE FERRY!
Somewhat relaxing
Our cabin thing
We had fun taking pictures
I am going to leave it off here for now. I will update about today and tomorrow in Venice tomorrow night! Just know – I love Venice.
Fun Fact: “At some point, really, all you can do is laugh.” – Holly Furman
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