Thankfully, Venice's train system actually stops at Santa Lucia--on the primary 'island' just in the far west corner. This makes navigating the city and finding a place to stay an easier task than you might expect.
We left the train system and talked with a very friendly hotel-pusher named Mr. Gusseppi, who explained to us that he had a fantastic deal at a hotel very near the station. We thanked him and asked him to tell us a little about where we were. He obliged and even told us where the hostels were located and which ones were cost us extra in terms of a ferry to a different island, which was very kind of him.
We stopped by one of the tourists offices in the station and spent €2.50 on a guide and map, making Venice the only city where we have done so, because we knew that Venice was a very easy place in which to lose yourself, and we had very specific objectives for the next day (mainly the Bridge of Sighs, Rialto Bridge, and some of the views on the south edge).
Then we started the process of trying to find a place to sleep. We camped ourselves and our bags on the Grand Canal, just in front of the train station, and admired the beautiful view of a waterfront cathedral and the primary thoroughfare of Venice. The tourist office had provided us with a free, but relatively useless listing of hotels in the surrounding area, and we spend some time trying to find places with promising prices. With half a dozen places circled and still no definite address for the hostel, we decided to have a look at Mr. Gusseppi's suggestion, and walked down a few narrow streets and across a canal or two to the location. However, our time spent deliberating had cost us, two very nice girls from South Africa had beaten us to the room. The doorman was very nice and called another hotel and offered us a room for €80 for a double, but that was considerably out of our price range, so we headed back across the Grand Canal and into the Cannaregio region.
The best hotel deals we had seen were in this area, and we figured we could find a room with a couple of twins for maybe €50 if we were lucky. We had no illusions about costs on Venice; the island's tight space makes it hard to find cheap accommodations easily. It turns out we were wrong.
We wandered our way across the northern part of the island and after crossing a major canal we found our first stop, Hotel Biasin, according to the guide, we might be able to find a reasonable room rate here in the off season.
So we entered the small hotels tiny reception area and looked around. Some furniture, a desk, and a phone on it. Oddly, the phone was turned out, across the desk, facing towards us. With almost no paperwork in the room, a 8.5 by 11 sheet of paper next to the phone stuck out. "DAIL 99 FOR RECEPTION."
We looked at each other, confused, and around the room again. Self service reservations? It was an odd way to run a hotel.
I picked up the phone, half expecting to be offered a room across the city and told by a darkly sinister male voice "Walk over to the bridge and tell the man in the green overcoat that the weather in Chicago is rainy, he'll give you the information about the next checkpoint." It felt vaguely like a bad spy novel.
Instead, a kind, old, and thickly accented Italian woman's voice inquired as to how many of us there were, and offered us a place to stay. She explained quickly "I'm in Hotel Marte. Across the bridge. Come here. I have beds for you." I hemmed and hawed for a moment on the phone, worried we'd wander around the city chasing phones all afternoon without getting a price. "Very cheap. 18 Euro each."
I thanked her and hung up, then turned to 80. "We're going across the river to Hotel Marte. There is a room for us there."
80 looked at me like I'd lost my mind. I'd dialed reception of one hotel from its lobby, and received information about available beds in a completely different hotel?
I pointed back across the river at the Hotel Marte sign, visible from where we stood near the door of Biasin. "I guess they own both buildings."
As it turns out, our delightfully kindhearted host did indeed run both hotels, Marte and Biasin. We entered Marte, climbed two flights of stairs and found ourselves at the reception, where we explained that we wanted two beds to the tiny Italian proprietor. The voice and the face fit perfectly. She nodded and then winced as she explained. "Ah, yes. I have a room that you could use. But it is very small. Very small. You don't tell me yet. You come see the room, then say if you want. It's very small."
Adrienne and I exchanged looks that read "we'll sleep in a cabinet if it's cheap enough."
Little did we know that's exactly what we would be doing.
The lady led us up one more skinny flight of stairs to a long, hall-like upper loft pressed tightly against the rafters of the building. The original building beams were still in place, with the new renovations having been done around them, creating a space that was clean and bright, but leaving every few meters a beam so old that the weathering appeared to have been burned in a major fire which loomed dangerously close to my forehead level. The hallway reminded me of the room I had grown up in back home, where my ceiling was only my height in the very center and sloped down from there.
We looked around and followed our guide to a tiny, thin door, resembling a large cabinet door for a pantry, with three other doors just like it to the side. It looked for all the world like set of cabinets. Our guide opened the door and gestured inside. Behind it the whole room was open, with all four doors opening into the same area. The room had enough space for two cots, basically mini-twins, with 2 feet of space between them (a support beam in the middle of the room enforced the layout) and maybe a few additional feet on either side. The roof sloped down away from us, meaning that if I moved more than 3 feet into the room, I was forced to stoop.
"18 Euro each." the tiny woman said.
"It's adorable, and perfect. We'll take it!" We said, echoing each other in our haste.
Unbelievably, we had just secured ourselves a private hotel room on Venezia Island for 18 Euros a piece. We thanked our landlady and said we'd love to use the room.
We dropped our bags upstairs and were shown where the bathrooms and showers were located. As an aside, the showers were even shorter than the room, and I felt like a giant trapped in a phone booth, but they were functional and the water was hot, which was all I needed.
After our tour we headed back downstairs and filled out the paperwork (passport information and payment), then received a tiny key to lock the cabinet door so that we could leave our non-valuable items (clothes, food) in the room while we wandered the streets of Venice.
Our host was as gracious as she was kind, and the hotel was in a perfect location, just next to a major bridge and only a 2 minute stroll from the first of the three bridges that cross the Grand Canal.
We never did shake the feeling that we were staying in a cabinet though. I have pictures of the place and hopefully I'll get the chance to upload them soon.
Edit: Here is one.
My camera is pressed against the opposite wall of the room.
Cabinet Shot.
No comments:
Post a Comment