October 8, 2011

  • Ventures in Veneto

    Well, today I had quite a few adventures, going on a much more extensive jaunt around the Veneto region than I had planned before I set out this morning...

    A couple of weeks ago, before I decided to go to Ljubljana, I thought I would like to go and re-visit Vicenza, a town famous for a lot of Palladio architecture. I first visited in 2007 whilst living in Trento, but only spent half a day there because my friend Sally and I decided to go on to Padova the same afternoon and combine the two cities as they were so close.  Given that I've re-visited Padova and many of the other cities that I explored either during my year abroad or during my year in Brescia (both years being ones I had plenty of time to gallivant all over Italy whenever I so pleased...), I thought I should give Vicenza a more extensive exploring too. So, I bought the ticket thinking I would go when I got back from Villach, but then I went to Ljubljana and then I was sort of back at work, so I never made it. The train ticket was valid until November, but I thought I should try and go while the weather was still nice as otherwise, especially as work gets busier, I risked wasting the ticket. So, despite being thoroughly exhausted from having had all my teens courses start back on Thurs/Friday and a new adults course (the timetable isn't actually that full yet but of course the first few lessons back are always a bit more effort-requiring than others, especially with new classes/students) and really thinking this morning that I'd quite like to have a lie-in and a duvet day rather than get up at 7am, I got up, and set off for Vicenza. Actually it was nice because I bumped into one of my colleagues and her husband at the station and we got on the train together and travelled until I had to change train at Treviso.

    So...arrived in Vicenza and had a pleasant walk around looking at the same things again - well...some different things, but not many, and I didn't pay to go inside the same things I'd been in previously (e.g. the theatre which is the oldest one in Europe).  I didn't find the people I encountered particularly friendly (completely unhelpful woman in the tourist office, completely unfriendly woman who sold me postcards and completely rubbish waitress in the restaurant where I had lunch) which was a shame. I always think it's funny when people talk about how "friendly" the people were in a city, as I've never really found them not to be anywhere, but as soon as you do you realise just why people think it's so nice when they are friendly! I treated myself to lunch in a pizzeria with a nice big glass of wine. Actually I'd bought a sandwich at the station in the morning, but I ended up giving it to a guy who was begging saying he was hungry (because I would rather give food than money in those circumstances). 


    Vicenza - columns in Piazza dei Signori

    Anyway, it is a nice city, and the Palladio architecture is fantastic. Just looking at my photos from 2007 now I'm glad I got the chance to take some new ones as there's really no comparison! But, apart from that it has to be said that there was probably a lesson to be learnt today: if the first time you visit a city you leave it after a couple of hours to move on to another one, mainly because you feel you've exhausted the first one, then you're probably not going to find a whole lot more to make it worth returning to a second time... 

    By 2pm I had run out of things to do, and at that point although the skies were clear and it was sunny, it wasn't that hot to sit around reading a book or anything, so I was actually thinking about just heading home (which would have allowed me to get on with chores, supermarket shopping, lesson planning, that kind of thing...). 

    But no... recently I've been quite taken with spontaneous unplanned adventures and I decided to go for another one. Basically, once I realised that Vicenza was lovely but wasn't really all that worth visiting a second time round, I started wishing I'd gone to a new place instead, and the new place I had considered was the small but pretty town of Bassano del Grappa. Recommended by my guidebook etc, and I had planned to go there another day. But like Vicenza it's about €22 return on the trains so would have been another full day out from Udine. Whereas from Vicenza it's not far at all! So, I decided to head from Vicenza to Bassano and then back to get my train back. The train to Bassano involved changing at a small station called Cittadella so it actually took about an hour with waiting time at Cittadella, but the good thing about changing there was that it was on the line for the train back to Treviso to get back to Udine. So, having explained my plans to the trenitalia salesman, he asked if I would make it back to Udine within the 6 hours that the regional tickets are valid for, and I thought I would, so he said just to stamp my Vicenza - Udine ticket there at 15.07 when I got on the train to Cittadella, then he sold me a €4.15 return from Cittadella to Bassano to use for that leg, and then as long as I got back to Udine by 21.07 I was fine on the same ticket. Perfect! I would arrive in Bassano at 16.08 and that seemed like plenty of time therefore. Until I looked at the train times... the latest train I could get back to Udine arrived at 20.55, leaving Treviso at 19.38. To get back to Treviso for 19.38 I had to get the train from Cittadella at 18.25. To get back to Cittadella for 18.25 I had to leave Bassano at 17.50. You get the picture....
     
    By this point I was determined to go though (especially as I'd bought the ticket!), and decided it was defintely worth it even if just as a reccy to see if it was worth going back at a later stage.  So I got to Cittadella and while I was waiting I realised that the "train" coming back there after was actually a substitute bus. So I started wondering if it would come straight to the station because I only had a very short time from 18.15-18.25 to get the train back to Treviso (and if I missed that I'd invalidate my ticket that I'd stamped at 15.07). Being a small station, if the bus dropped off outside the door, 10 minutes should be plenty. So I asked a nice helpful lady if she knew whether the substitute buses dropped off outside the station and she was fairly sure they didn't, and tried to explain to me where they did. However, she was confident that it wasn't too far and with 10 minutes I'd be fine.  I decided to ask a TrenItalia staff member anyway when I got to Bassano, and he kindly showed me where the bus left from and assured me that it arrived at the station in Cittadella too. So far so good. 
    Wandered into Bassano, found the tourist office near the station and asked the girl what I should see in a 90 minute visit. She gave me directions to the bridge etc which I remembered I wanted to see from the guidebook (which of course I didn't have with me).  She explained that there was a "fiera" on today (a sort of market/festival type thing) so the city centre wasn't that accessible. Groan. I picked the WORST possible day to go. Those fieras are a time when the     whole city is out and you can't move for people, so trying to get through the sites quickly was just impossible as you spend hours waiting behind people who are walking as slowly as they possibly can. Grrr. What I saw of the city centre was lovely, I just wish I'd been able to see more (the whole place was covered by stalls and people so it was impossible to get perspective on the main squares etc). But, I did see the famous wooden bridge and the lovely view from that, and had a nice walk around generally. 

    Above:View of Bassano del Grappa from the bridge (shown below)



    As I had sort of finished seeing as much as I realistically could before the 17.50 bus (no time to visit the Grappa Museum or anything!!) it was only 17.05 and I remembered there was another bus at 17.20 which it was probably worth me trying to get, as that would lessen the risk of missing the train. Walked back to the station and first of all couldn't see any sign of the train/bus on the departures computer screen, so I checked the yellow board again and realised that it said "working days". Being Saturday, I started worrying that I'd made a mistake and couldn't get that after all (even though I had checked on the ticket machine!) and went to ask the guy who said it was fine (I forgot that in Italy Saturday IS a working/school day). But I couldn't see the bus where the other Trenitalia man had been kind enough to show me that it left from. By now it was 17.20 and I'd started worrying that I was actually going to be stranded in Bassano for the evening... but then JUST at the last minute I realised the bus wasn't where I'd been told but on a different road, and I managed to get on it. Some other girls had asked if it stopped at Cittadella as well so I knew I'd be safe getting off with them. Until I realised that I didn't actually know for sure where it stopped or whether there were multiple stops in Cittadella etc. Anyway, this bus was due in at 17.45 which would give me plenty of time to get the 18.25 train. At 17.55 we were still on the road. I was already thankful for my sixth sense reminding me of the 17.20 bus and hinting to my brain that it might be a good idea to get the earlier one, as if the later bus had been slower due to traffic etc as well then I would have missed it for sure. THAT was before I got off the bus too... basically the girls got off, and I went and asked the driver if that was the stop for the station and he said "No, the next one, but then you have to walk a bit". He was lovely and when he dropped me at the stop he gave me exact directions to walk, but it was NOT near the station, it was exactly as the other woman had said! I doubted her, but she knew what she was talking about!! By the time I actually got to the station it was 18.10! Thank GOODNESS I got the earlier bus!! The nice thing was that I had to walk past the citadel which gives Cittadella its name, which was quite impressive to see.

     
    Cittadella 

    Then the rest of the journey home was smooth and I arrived with the 12 minutes to spare on my original ticket. In fact none of the tickets were checked at all since 15.07 when I got on at Vicenza and realised the machine had run out of ink and had to get the conductor to write the time on the ticket...it wasn't looked at again!

    So, all in all, a good adventure! The trains went: Udine - Treviso - Vicenza - Cittadella - Bassano del Grappa - Cittadella - Treviso - Udine. I did some kilometres! Glad I did though as much as I did enjoy seeing Vicenza again (don't get me wrong), it would have been a shame to go home after just a few hours. Glad I went on!