Friday, 20th of September, 2019.
What to say about Venice? Complicated. We spend our whole lives imagining that it is such a wonderful city, incredible, romantic as hell… Well… I am not quite sure if it is all of that.
So I have first to walk to this tourist information and to get a map from there. Since I have not finished my directions, I do not know exactly how to get in there. So instead of just keep walking too much, I decided to ask, here and there, if there is any free maps of the city available. Everywhere I get a no for answer. Even in one of the shops, the attendant, misunderstanding me for a stupid tourist, try to open one of the guide books and take the map out to sell to me for €3. I just started walk out of the shop saying “no, thanks!”.
So I finally get in the tourist information. Or at least what I think it is. And I ask the lady, before tell her I have no phone, if there is any free map. The answer is no again. But then, when I am staring at the map on the wall, hopeless in try to memorize something, the same lady says: “Here, somebody left this map so you can have it if you want.” Wow! Amazing! So nice of her! And it was a good map, hãm? So now I can walk freely around Venice.
What I can say… I cross a lot of bridges; I see a lot of people in the gondolas (some of them staring at their phones!); I see a lot of tourists; more bridges; nice old buildings; all the restaurants and coffee shops always with people; more bridges; the famous Rialto Bridge; the view of open see; I eat my piece of pizza from Coop; and that is it.
I do not know why I did not get that impressed by Venice. I do not even know what I was expecting anymore. To be honest the only think I was thinking about it was the movie The Italian Job. Laugh. And in how must to be difficult for the people who live in there. With so many tourists around all the time. Maybe that is why they are so angry all the time. At least they look angry.
One good tip about the city: do not get too attached to the maps. Which ever you have: any apps or physical maps. They will fail! You must to get the way of them, as much as the way of the city. So if the map say left or right, next street is this or that one, you must not take it literally, you have to interpret the map, to think like the map, to be the map. Laugh. It is a joke but I am serious too. If you just try to follow the map you will get lost hundreds of time. Oh, yeah, you will, definitely, to get lost any way. But the way that you behave with the map it will determine how many times. Relax your mind and become the map!
I come back to the boys Airbnb, finish my packing and after goodbyes and good wishes, I leave. My plan is the same: walk out of town, to camp and next morning hitchhike. This time to Verona. The only difference now is that “walking out of town” it means crossing the huge bridge which connect it with the continent. Thank you Venice!
So after over an hour, I cross the bridge and decide to make my camp behind some construction working area. There is a gap in the fence to the park and I am not sure if I can get another one further, so I decide to stay there.
A few hours after I start to sleep, I hear voices. At least two man. Oh shit! At first I think they are workers from the construction site. But what in the hell they would be doing here so early? So I figure that it cannot be, they must to be just outsiders. Which I do not know if it is better or worse. But why they did not said anything? Did they see me? Are they scared too about who could be inside? Maybe local outsiders? Or maybe they are just waiting until later, when there is no more cars passing, at least not too many, and then they can do something. Oh, Loki! Can you imagine all this questions crossing my mind and now what too do? So I decide I have to make a move and I start to pack. I tried to make as less noise as possible and I do not know if they hear me or see me but I see them. They are behind the bushes, with a small campfire, and they are talking all the time. Italians. I leave. With my tent half packing half coming out. In another spot, on the road, I pack a little better and then carry on. Now I need to find another place to camp. Should I walk longer? Should I change the road? Would they come for me? I do not know. All the places around are with fences. Long fences. So the only alternative I find it is to put the tent in this entrance to a large site, with a gate, quite hide from the road. Just if you look really into, when you pass with your car, you could see. During the night, a guy stopped there to pee. That is all. In the morning I will walk to another bad decision. Oh mine…
