"Wheelchair Upgrade”   We stayed one night in London at a Victorian railroad hotel built right in to Victoria Station, to make it easier to leave the next morning on the Orient Express. As we checked in, I noticed that the room number on the card she gave me had been manually changed without any explanation. I didn't think much of it until we got to the room. We had once again been given what I call an unannounced "wheelchair upgrade” (it happened last year in Bath, too) to a suite, for the same price. On one side of a vestibule was a good-sized bedroom, with fresh fruit on the table. But on the other side was a living room maybe 2 or 2½ times the size of the bedroom. It had a bar of sorts, a (non-functioning) fireplace, set of couches, and in the far corner, a good-sized partners' desk. They seemed to think we needed that because the wheelchair needs more room! After dinner, once Bev was in bed, I was what seemed to be about halfway across London at the partners' desk doing e-mailing.

The Euro   Britain is of course still not on the Euro, but I got some Euros for Italy and France from an ATM on arrival in Venice. The notes have different sizes and colors for different denominations. When it came out, the Euro was worth a little more than a dollar, than for a long time it was under a dollar, at about 90 cents. In the last couple of months it's risen and is now equal to a dollar. That makes it a bit more expensive, but not only is it a delight to know that it's usable over borders, it's so much fun to look at prices that look like dollars. If something costs €18 you know it's $18.

Venice Simplon Orient-Express   From what I read from literature received as well as the website (www.orient-express.com), this service originated in the 1880's between Paris and Constantinople (Istanbul). However, it never had that closely defined a route. Service was extended to London, and various routes through the Alps were used, most notably through the Simplon Tunnel in 1906, which shortened the route to Venice. It was a luxury operation from the start. The American George Pullman, known in the US for his inexpensive dormitory-type Pullman cars, became known in Britain, however, for luxury sleepers in the same time period. This was the service from the beginning that connected London with the Orient-Express. WW2 brought decline, airplanes moreso. By 1962 the Orient-Express was replaced with an ordinary train that carried mainly Turkish workers, peasants and students. It last ran in 1977.

That year, a man named Sherwood bought two run-down carriages at a Sotheby auction in Monte Carlo, then continued to search for more old British Pullman carriages and continental Wagon-Lits carriages for restoration. The restored train, mostly with carriages from the 1920's, first ran in May 1982, and just celebrated its 20th anniversary. I found out on board that Venice, which is centrally located for the routes served, is now the headquarters of VSOE. A run to Paris/London out of Venice is now considered a round trip. There is also occasional service to Istanbul (Constantinople), Rome, Prague, and Vienna. When I found out that the train, which leaves London only every other Thursday, would line up with our arrival, I was delighted. It also didn't hurt that this year the ride is on sale: the second person travels for half fare. One is warned that this is a traditional restoration and that there are no showers on these trains, as other trains have. Also, true to the period, there is one toilet down the hall. I checked that this would all work for Bev, and it would. The first part of the trip is, as traditional, on a set of British Pullmans, from Victoria Station to Folkestone. Both these and the continental trains have beautiful hardwood interiors, with marquetry and wood inlay. All the fittings above are polished brass, the lamps are Art Deco, and I wouldn't be surprised if the glass lampshades were Lalique. All glasses are crystal. The British Pullman consisted of some dozen dining cars. Every chair was a plush high-backed moveable dining room chair. A three-course lunch was served with champagne and wine. At Folkestone, where traditionally everyone would get off to take the ferry to Calais, instead you take a huge, plush motorcoach (bus), which brings you over to the Eurotunnel (Chunnel). The bus drives right on to the train which brings all vehicles through the tunnel. Then we pulled up to Calais.

The name of the traditional company that ran continental sleepers had one of the longest corporate names you've ever seen, and as the motorcoach pulled up to the Calais station, there was the Orient-Express waiting, and sure enough, each car had across the top, taking the full length of each car:

The French is long, and so is the English. A good translation would be:

But everybody just calls the company Wagons-Lits (va.go[ng].LI). By the way, I brought along on the ship a copy of Agatha Christie's "Murder on the Orient-Express" to reread. And before we left NY, I rented the 1974 film to resee, with Albert Finney, Lauren Bacall, Sean Connery, Dame Wendy Hiller, Rachel Roberts, and a half-dozen other major names. Good film.

Our compartment was small, but comfortable, with a beautiful washstand enclosed in a cabinet. Again, the woodwork, brass, and glasswork was just as nice throughout this train as well. We dressed for dinner. I was never able to take Bev up to the bar car, as it was too far, but I went to take a peek and it was beautiful, with couches on the side, the bar at the back, and a pianist playing a grand piano. The trip lasts from 11:15 the first day until 5:30 in the afternoon the next day. Breakfast was served in the room whenever you wanted it, with fresh flowers in a silver vase on the side; then lunch in the dining car, and later afternoon tea in your room. I noticed some wood kindling in storage. The steward said hot water is made the traditional way, and he has to stoke a water heater with the kindling to keep the water hot.

Venezia   First of all, Venice is Venezia (vé-NÉ-tsya, é's as in "café"). There's a striking geographic resemblance, for those who know New York City geography, between the Venetian Lagoon and Jamaica Bay. The Lagoon is enclosed by the barrier beach of the Lido on the southeast, just as the Bay is enclosed by Rockaway Beach on the southeast. The suburb (actually, city) of Mestre lies on the mainland to the northwest, just as Howard Beach does on the Bay. Venice is in the middle of the Lagoon, as Broad Channel Island is in the Bay. As for connections, there is one major difference. Both rail and road come to Broad Channel, cross it, and go on to the beach. When the rail causeway (since 1860) and the road causeway (since the 1950's, I think) reach Venice, that's as far as they go. You go on beyond that by boat. So as the Orient-Express left Mestre and ran over the causeway to Santa Lucia Station, you could see Venice up ahead.

I had also rented David Lean's 1955 film "Summertime", with Katherine Hepburn and Rossano Brazzi. It's still a great film, but that beautiful mandolin music seemed tinny given the sound recording of the day. Just as Katherine Hepburn falls in a canal (she really did it herself), we saw a woman being pulled out of the water our first evening. In any case, as we pulled into Santa Lucia Station, I thought of that famous last scene in the movie of Hepburn's train pulling out.

I had been in Venice on my first trip in 1957, and when we were studying in Mainz, Bev and I went in the spring of 1962 for her first trip there; so it's been 40 years. We have always been great city walkers while travelling. We frequently have walked from 9 AM to 9 PM with only an occasional break in a cafe. These last few years it's worked very well to do a lot more driving, just getting out occasionally for more fine-tuned walking. But I was wondering if Venice would be too much. A website I found was very reassuring. As the website suggested, I picked up the map on arrival showing which streets were accessible and not blocked by bridges (a lot more than you may think), bought a weekly ticket on the vaporetto (waterbus) to hop from area to area, and everything worked fine. We got all over the city, which is really quite tiny, anyway.

I've said I much prefer to use our Starwood frequent guest points for hotels rather than for flights, and I was delighted to find out that the Danieli was a Starwood hotel. The Danieli, along with the Gritti Palace and the Cipriani, is one of the three big hotels in Venice, with stratospheric rates, and we got it for four days' of points, with the fifth day free, as is their custom. But it gets better. On arrival I re-checked what I had said in my e-mail saying we had a wheelchair and didn't want steps coming off the elevator. He said we had gotten the room they always give in those circumstances; it was nice; it has a high ceiling. It was another wheelchair upgrade!

I understand the Danieli moved into this building in the 1820's and has hosted everyone from Charles Dickens to Princess Di. The building was the Palazzo Dandolo from 1400 and the courtyard of the palazzo (Photo by Laura y Luis) is now the atrium of the hotel, with Gothic arches going up several floors. Coming off the elevator we could see the regular rooms going down the hallway, but off the Gothic arches of the atrium was a very wide hallway, almost a loggia, with our door being one of them coming off it. Our door is thick, heavy wood maybe 2 by 3 meters/yards. At first I though the ceiling might be 5 m (16 ft) high, but that's only to the cornice, and it goes beyond that. It must be 6 m (20 ft).

One evening we had dinner at La Terrazza, the rooftop restaurant of the hotel,from which you can see the Whole World, even nicer when they pull back the electric awning. Anyway, when the waiter looked at our room key so we could charge dinner, he confided: “At'sa veddy nicea rooma.”

Why is Venice special? It's not just because of the canals. Amsterdam and St. Petersburg (Russia) have canals. They are beautiful cities. They call themselves Venice of the North. But they're not Venice. It's not just the canals that do it. Venice, Florida, and Venice, California, are also not Venice, because it isn't the canals that are that special. Here's what is:

1) Incredible Preservation The Middle Ages and the Renaissance are everyday in Venice. I just saw some stone, Gothic market stalls from the 15th Century. Vendors were selling trinkets out of them. To have an equivalent atmosphere of preservation of ancient structures in New York's Old City, which is the Wall Street Financial District, you'd have to remove the present buildings and replace them with the original Dutch farmhouses from the 1620's.

2) Unique Isolation of the Historic Center When London's City grew, the new areas were just attached to it. When New York grew out of the Wall Street area, it just spread uptown. Venice, surrounded by the lagoon, did spread onto the mainland (such as Mestre) but the original, historic city of Venice is isolated. To do the equivalent in New York you'd have to flood the area between Chambers and 14th Streets to isolate the Wall Street area as an island (with Dutch farmhouses on it).

3) No Streets: a City for Pedestrians The standard urban design is two rows of houses facing each other, each with sidewalks in front, and with a street in the middle. Visually remove the street, and push the rows of houses closer so that the two sidewalks touch. You now have the Venetian urban design--all sidewalk between buildings. Sidewalk cafes are nice enough elsewhere, but you always have that street traffic. In Venice, they are ideal, sidewalk cafes on nothing but sidewalk.

4) Finally, the Canals The walkways run all across the city, occasionally divided by the canals. That's where those stepped bridges go over to connect walking areas. The canals are very picturesque, but mostly utilitarian, for delivering goods and such. People usually don't travel on them. The gondolas are now used by tourists and have little practical value, any more than the Hansom carriages in New York or the cable cars in San Francisco. The canals are nice, but that's not the only thing that Venice is all about.

For the first time, we got to go to the Ghetto in Venice. It's the oldest one in Europe, and as a matter of fact, ghetto is a Venetian word. There are several active synagogs, a museum, holocaust memorial, shops for religious articles, mostly around the Piazza del Ghetto Nuovo.

The Grand Canal is more like a major river going thru Venice, as the Thames goes through London. It's all those little side canals that are so much smaller. The side canals have all their (already mentioned) bridges, but the Grand Canal has only three bridges crossing it, the famous Rialto (Photo by Saffon Blaze), the wooden Accademia, and the Scalzi near the station. We just used the vaporetto to go from a stop on one side to another, but for people who want to go directly across, there is the ferry called the traghetto. There are a number of traghetto locations along the Grand Canal. A traghetto looks like a gondola on steroids. It is black like a gondola, but is a quarter to a half again as large. We've never taken a gondola, but we took a traghetto years ago. The odd thing about a traghetto is that almost everyone stands while it crosses, facing forward while it is rowed. We watched one with about 20-25 people standing, resolutely facing forward. Onward, ever onward. It looked like a Venetian version of Washington Crossing the Delaware.

Centuries ago, not only was it just the wealthy who could build their palazzi, but only the "in" group could do so on the Grand Canal. The Palazzo Labia was built by a Spanish family, and they had to build back from the Canal, with a smaller building actually on the Canal. As is the case everywhere, most of the palazzi are now either museums, government buildings, or owned by foundations. The most famous is the Ca' d'Oro [House of Gold] (Photo by Didier Descouens), beautifully Gothic, now a museum. Another well known one is the Ca' Rezzonico (Photo by Adriano), now also an art museum. I walked into its inner courtyard, and it's beautiful. The Ca' Rezzonico was owned in the 1820's by Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Michelin tells me that they left it to their son, who ended up losing it in a divorce settlement, when he couldn't afford to pay back the dowry he'd been given. Apparently, those things happened then, too.

On the side of the Ca' Rezzonico is a stone plaque in Italian saying that "Roberto" Browning had died there, and then went on to quote him in English:

I know he also lived in Florence, but I can't help thinking that in this case, he would have put in "Venice", except that he couldn't get it to rhyme.

The uniqueness of Venice and the Venetian dialect influenced John Ringling, and when he built his mansion in Sarasota, Florida, he did not name it in English as "John's House" or "House of John", he did not name it in Italian as "Casa di Giovanni", he named it in the unique Venetian dialect of Italian as "Ca' d'Zan".

The Danieli is well located in Venice (click to enlarge) (Map by Luestling). Its three south-facing buildings abut the medieval Prigione / Prison on this map, which is connected by the Ponte dei Sospiri / Bridge of Sighs to the Palazzo Ducale / Doge's Palace on the Piazza San Marco / Saint Mark's Square (Photo by Skyguy414). I was delighted to see the Danieli also had a water entrance on a side canal. As it turns out, we had to use it, since when we left we couldn't use the vaporetto (so easy for wheelchairs) because of the luggage. So we then lifted Bev in the wheelchair down into the water taxi (it's a motorboat). That was fine, but it was more hairy getting her out on the other end. All's well that end's well. We rented our car at Piazzale Roma, the only part of Venice with vehicular traffic (the bus fumes are terrible!), and having come in on the rail causeway, we drove off on the road causeway.