We snub a snoot of Venice

Ms Donna is Italian.

I've told her often enough that some day, before we be feeble, she would find it educational and inspirational to see the home country.

We've saved up the money to go more than once. We spent it once buying a house in the country. Once we spent it building fences and then again replacing the doggly ruined carpet with protective floors. And now we're saving once again. We don't really have savings, just spendings. But some day maybe we'll be lucky enough to jet off to Europe before we talk ourselves into spending on something else more practical.

She wants to see Rome and I tell her she wants to Naples and Capri and Florence. She says she wants to see Venice.

She's asked me about Venice. I was there. Don't have much memory of the place. About all I really remember is that it was dirty.

Jay Yurth - a shipmate of mine and an author of books that can be found on Amazon.com has also recently talked about Venezia in an email that he sent to me.

He titled the email:

A Romantic (Stinky) city.

So, Bob H., Bob N., Richard P., Steve M., and Jay Y. decided to hop on a train to visit Venice. Oh, we couldn't wait to get on a gondola and drink a favorite local beer as we floated down a canal and waved at the locals waving at us tourists.

(Let me interject here that yes, I did dream of gondolas in the old country but I despise all Italian beers I've ever tried. I love beer but in Italy I'll drink wine thank you).

We took a nice big whale boat from the Ship onto the fleet landing in Trieste, then a taxi to the train station and got our tickets. we got on a fairly empty train and sat down in the small two-people bench seats that faced each other, but we squeezed the five of us into them. We had a little traveling chess set and two of us were playing chess, with the game resting on the four knees as the benches were so close, we were almost touching knees anyway.

The train stopped often, picking up other riders. After a while we noticed that the train was getting very full. Then it was to the point that people were pushed in between our knees standing up. That train kept stopping and more and more people kept climbing on. Then the train stopped and there was a commotion. We didn't understand Italian, but the yelling sounded a bit unusual. It was excitable yelling. We tried to look out the window but the hairy arm pitted mustached LADY was blocking our view. After lots of commotion, everyone started exiting the train. We finally had enough room to lean out the window and saw that the conductor and/or engineers were all together making all the passengers get off the train. So, we got off in the middle of who knows where. Nowadays you would instantly think it was a bomb scare or some other terrorist related incident, but back in 1979, we were just confused, in Italian. After about 15 minutes, everyone started getting back on the train. Okay then, problem solved, so on we go. Lost our seats doggonnit. But after asking around, we found out that the engineers were mad that there were too many people on the train. Now, even in my young 20 year old mind, I was thinking all they had to do if they were full, is to just not stop and pick up any more folks. Whatever. On to Venice.

We arrived there, walked out of the train station and instantly noticed a smell. It was not constant, but when the wind was just right, you knew there was poop somewhere out in the open. Never mind, where is the beer, wine even? Maybe one of those Imperial gallons we loved to get, with the nice wicker base and a handle on the neck, like a mooshine jug. We walked around and really didn't see much of anything to see, per say. We were going to get on a gondola but someone told us that this wonderful city really wasn't built on water, it was being reclaimed by the water. The city was built on little marsh like islands long ago but now it is just flooded.

That smell...it was a combination of the raw sewage from the buildings that had bathrooms on the first floor, which are now under water and leaking and the stagnant flood waters. No one had found a way to drain the water out and put nice smelling water back in.

So, I think we just went back into the train station and got train tickets back to port. Or maybe we each got one of those imperial gallons of wine. If that was the case, that is the reason I have no memory after this point of the story!

(Me again - whew! He doesn't remember Venice much either. Well maybe that's why I don't. Sailors have a special way of dealing with adversity when ashore. We would get very drunk on strange brew and then forget the place).