Day 6 – Thursday, December 24, 2009 – Drive from Venice to Rome

Ok, last night I actually got up twice to check out the high-tide thing.  We heard the sirens again last night.  I went down around 12:30 am; and it was still raining, the streets were wet, but no standing water.  I went down again around 4:00 am; and guess what; the water was up about 130 cm.  This is like to my knees.  The entire street was flooded, and the water was to the very top of the hotel’s “water gate”.  If I owned some water boots, I would have trecked over to San Marco’s square and taken a picture of it under water!  They said this happens maybe five times per year during the winter.  This happened two nights during out stay.  Amazing.  They say this water thing is a real problem.  I got different opinions from different folks I spoke with about this.  Some say Venice is still sinking; others say it has stopped.  Everyone admits that the water is a real problem.  In any case, it’s good we are here now to see it.

We got up this morning a bit late.  This was our “driving day” to Rome.  Our drive was scheduled to take five hours, and Katie prophesied that it would take eight.  We had our breakfast again… I am thankful for the yumminess that this entails, but I must say that I am glad this is our last breakfast of this kind (think Venetian meets British Colonial).

It took a while to check out.  We said our goodbyes and then departed.  We took the number 2 water bus line through the grand canal again.  Our last goodbye to a really neat city on water.  Boy is it an ordeal to get in and out of this place.  And, parking, by golly; 62 Euros for the three days!  For those doing the math, that’s like $100.  More and more, we realize why Europeans travel by train (when you don’t pack deodorant, your bags are lighter).

We finally hit the road about 1:30pm.  By my calculations, that should have put us in Rome by around 6:30; just in time for dinner (eternal optimist).  Once again, adverse driving conditions.  Intense fog welcomed us on our journey.  This turned into rain, which then turned into heavy rain.  We stopped for gas; they were on Italian time (seven people doing who knows what) and after ten minutes with no gas flow I left.  We ended up filling up at another station and grabbed a road lunch.  This was definitely not a tourist place.  I was surprised when they called my bluff and said “Merry Christmas” as I walked out.  I thought my Italian had fooled them.

We hit Florence right around 5:00 pm.  We sat for two hours in stand-still traffic.  More rain.  I am sure that this drive from Florence to Rome was a knock-your-socks-off kind of scene.  From what I saw in the dark/rain, it was beautiful, and you start to catch some glimpses of the old Roman world.  We had some difficulty finding our hotel (remember those stellar directions?), but Katie and I worked well as a team and we found it on our second try.

Our route from Venice to Rome

I tell you… we pulled up to the hotel and it was like “resort” ahoy!  Cool!  I pulled up like I owned the place, parked by the front door and sauntered in.  I walked through those doors and was greeted by a classical piano player, and a beautiful, relaxing lounge with people in it and what looked like food (we had to stop for “dinner” at a similar road-kill stop and basically got the same thing as lunch).  I was thrilled!  I was smiling ear-to-ear at the Italian concierge guy and told him un-ashamedly, “you have a cool place here… I’m glad we made it!!”.  He started to look nervous, and said, “do you have reservations”.  I cleared that up real quick and made friends fast…

We got the family in, enjoyed our cool room, and then went to bed.  I stayed up entirely too late doing research on the web and killing time.  Rome should be cool!

Random:

Kallie on the drive as we passed through another tunnel: “Mommy, get out of here so we can see what we are doing!”.