We woke up in Modena to a lovely breakfast full of fresh fruit in the Hotel Cervetta. We took another nice long stroll before going back upstairs to finish packing and go to the train station.

So much of this beautiful town is under resoration from the earthquake:


We got the taxi driver from Central Casting. Surly does not begin to say what an angry, aggressive JERK he was but I managed to giggle all the 5 minute drive to the station–he was just so classic–gunning the engine, yelling and gesturing wildly at the other drivers and hating the pedestrians and us. Pretty funny.
Our train was late from Modena to Bologna but we were super lucky as our next train came in right on the next platform as we pulled in so we didn’t have to looking all over the station for it. It was there and we got right on. These trains were totally full. Good thing we had seats. We sat with a foursome from Australia who were on the third day of a 10 week trip through Europe. Ken talked (well mostly listened) to them the entire hour and a half to Venice. They were originally from Mauritius–very well traveled, interesting and friendly. We had to traipse over the Calatrava bridge from the station to renew our resident cards to get our Vaporetto passes. Of course, the office was on strike, so we just got on the vap without a ticket. I was a little nervous–I really don’t like to do that! When we get our new cards I think I will swipe them twice to make up for the free ride.
Our new landlord Enrico met us at the San Stae stop. We walked to the apartment and I just started getting a bad feeling. Why was he (true enough he looked older than us) not helping me with me luggage? There was just something off, immediately.
Long story short–the apartment is fine, not the best but certainly not the worst. The wifi works great BUT he doesn’t want us to use the air conditioning! I had emailed specifically to ask about it before we reserved this place. He says it is a disaster and costs him a fortune for water and it doesn’t work well anyway. We are both freaking out a bit at this moment. For now, the weather is gorgeous, even cool, but what about 2 weeks from now?? He is telling us is his obsequious mix of Italian English and German (he kept getting confused and lapsing into German) that all of his American friends are happy with the fan. He has a small stand up fan in the bedroom. The guy is just giving me a creepy vibe. He has a script about us being friends now and how happy he is to welcome us into his home. Gag me! We want A/C. So finally he showed us how it works. He had the remote for it in a locked cabinet but pretty much begged us not to use it. Finally he left and we were both pretty shaken, in a yucked out sort of way.
So we turned to ur first line of defense–take a walk. After we got good and lost somewhere in Santa Croce, we both felt better.
We went to the Coop in San Giacomo dell’ Orio and got just a few little things. We hadn’t eaten lunch so went to the Birraria, right around the corner and had some pasta and prosecco followed by another nice stroll to the top of the Rialto bridge and then home.

Here’s a picture of one of out little views: