Monastery Stay in Venezia

 Choosing a hotel in Venice requires some consideration, especially when you arrive there at night. That was the case when I decided Venice as a gateway to the Dolomite in the northern Italy from Tokyo, Japan. I landed on the Marco Polo Airport on June 28, 2019 and took the line No.5 ATVO shuttle bus to reach the Piazzale Roma, a square for the entry into Venice from the mainland. It was around 21 pm, but the square was still lively and busy with tourists. I had choose the hotel within around 5 minutes walking from this last bus stop, so I started to walk seemingly in the direction for the hotel with a printout of the Google map. But it was not so easy for a senior solo traveler carrying heavy travelling suitcase with a mountain rucksack on the back to locate the right path. Every 5 minutes, I asked people on the street if I was on the right track. Finally I met the two young girls who were visiting Venice from Mestre, the nearest mainland city to Venice. They were so charming and kind and guided me to just the front of the hotel. I really realized how important it was to make sure the access route in detail in Venice before departure. The town was like a maze and you wouldn't rely on taxis, because they can't enter into the narrow street.

 　　



 
 The hotel I choose was run by the Religious Family of the St. Joseph's Daughters of Caburlotto. This was my first experience in staying at the so called Monastery inn. It was comparatively cheap, but clean and quite with no TV nor fridge in the room and the restrict curfew did not allow guests to enter the inn between 0:00am 6:00am. I liked this kind of atmosphere that made a senior solo traveler like me feel relaxed. The only thing that had annoyed me during the 3 days' stay here was its labyrinthine corridors in the ancient medieval building. Every time when I was trying to move into the dining room for breakfast or go out for sightseeing, I got lost on the way.

 Venice is an amazingly popular destination for tourists with its awesome landscape built on islands in a lagoon in the Adriatic Sea and the vaporetto, a water bus carrying people to and from along the Grand Canal. Water transportation is straightforward and convenient. The problem is there is no roads. 

    

I was looking for a toy shop in Venice, as my grandson of 6 years old wanted cool Italian sport car toys such as Lamborghini and Ferrari as souvenirs. I got off the vaporetto at Rialto along the Grand Canal after visiting the Basilica di S. Marco and the Lido Island, and started to stroll toward my hotel near Piazzale Roma, wondering if I might be able to find a toy shop. 

     




But after only 30 minutes walk, I got lost. Although there were some signposts found occasionally at the corner of houses, which seemingly showed the direction toward Piazzale Roma, but they were not dependable. I had always tried to follow the paths indicated by these signposts, but eventually they all disappeared. I realized that the old Venetian had the great talent and enthusiasm to build their houses on a lagoon capitalizing on water transportation, but with no consideration for inner roads.

     

Hiking in the Pyrenees

Lourdes
 Arriving to Lourdes at 16:30 by train from Bayonne on July 19 2018, we soon walked out to the nearby hotel. Lourdes is a small town in southern France with the population of 15,000, but a lot of people, more than 6M pilgrims, coming here every year from all over the world, because this is the sacred place for Catholics. So many that the town is ranked as No.2 after Paris in terms of the number of hotels per square meter.

          

 In planning this trip in Japan, at first I didn’t like to stay in such a busy town. So I looked for a more cozy B & B style inn in a remote village. But what I found out was that they were all inconveniently located for me to go to a day trip hiking in the various parts of the Pyrenees. The problem was the lack of local buses connecting one village to another. As I would have no car available here, I decided to choose Lourdes as a base for daily excursions. From Lourdes there is at least one local bus per day which takes me to one destination.

Cirque de Gavarnie
 My first pick for the hikes in the Pyrenees was Cirque de Gavarnie in the Pyrénées National Park, which was registered in the lists of UNESCO World Heritage Site and Victor Hugo once described as “an impossibly and extraordinary object, a Colosseum of nature”. 

 On the next day, we got on the Ligne41 local bus departing from the Lourdes station stop at 9 am for Gavarnie. There was only one direct bus in a day linking to that small village in the Pyrenees close to the border with Spain. I was a little bit surprised to see so few passengers on the bus at the time of summer holidays started. In Japan, we would see a lot more walking lovers. 
  In less than 2 hours, we reached Gavarnie (1,365 m) and entered into the tourist office just in front of the bus stop. 

      

 From here we walked into the village, following the path along the mountain stream with a gentle summer breeze touching pleasantly our faces. Beside us a little girl was passing by with her back straightened on a pony led by her father.     

     

 The trail ascended gradually with the image of Cirque de Gavarnie making its appearance ahead of us a little by little. It was a really easy and comfortable walking. 


         

  In less than two hours, we were at the foot of the great rocky cliffs standing perpendicularly with the height of 1,500 m and the width of around 3,000 m at the top. We felt just like surrounded by an ancient amphitheatre.The plateau where a summer bar restaurant called Hotellerie du Cirque sat was 1,570 m high above the sea level, which meant that the peaks seen on top of the cliffs exceeded 3,000 m high.  There are a number of melting water falls, of which the largest is Gavarnie Falls, the 2nd highest waterfall in Europe with the height of 422 meters. It is said that the cirque was formed by repeated cycles of glacial scraping over millions of years.

       

 After taking a light lunch with refreshing beer at the Hotellerie du Cirque, we descended to the Compostelle Hotel in Gavarnie village to stay for one night. In front of the hotel, there was a sign post with a light on the top, which showed that this was the inn for pilgrims heading for Santiago des Compostella as well as for the wanderers from distant Japan.
   

Lac de Gaube
 Lac de Gaube is the emerald green mountain lake situated at the height of 1725 m on the foot of Mt. Le Vignemale (3298m) . The hike from the bus stop at the Pont d'Espagne to the lake is one of the most popular hiking course in the Pyrenees. On July 22, we departed Lourdes on a bus at 8:10 am for the hike to this mysterious lake. By the way, the lake' name 'Gaube' is said to mean "lake" in Gascon language, so we sere going to the lake lake. 
In about 50 minutes we arrived in Cauterets and changed here to a shuttle bus for the Pont d'Espagne. 

Cascade du Pont D'espagne

Pont d'Espagne

 The hike is very relaxing and comfortable, enjoying the view of the distant mountain ranges in the Pyrenees ahead of us. 

     

Within two hours from the bus stop, we reached Lac de Gaube.
This is the Paradise! So I cried in my mind with the color of the emerald green lake quietly reflecting the image of the surrounded 3000m peaks with lingering snow. By the lake, there stood a summer bar and restaurant called Hotellerie du Lac de Gaube, where I toasted the Pyrenees with my friend.   

       

 In return, we took another route leading to the rope way top station. On the way we were welcomed by the Alpine wild flowers. At the station, while we were taking a rest before getting on an aerial rope way, we chatted with three lively women from Poland and Ukraine. They were talkative and friendly when they knew that we came from Japan. A younger lady from Ukraine said that she had an experience to work in Toyota's factory as a quality engineer and the other senior lady praised her Nissan's sedan. I thought that Japanese manufactures would get along better with Eastern Europe people if they would plan to construct factories in Europe. 

       

 On the lift down to the parking, we heard someone on an ascending lift just in the opposite direction suddenly shouting something toward us. We were puzzled, but my friend recognized him as a husband of the Spanish family whom we met in the Compostelle Hotel in Gavarnie village. They remembered us, two senior strange travellers from distant Japan. We were excited to greet each other by waving our hands.