Travel with Manfred

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Copyright © 1998 by Manfred P.. All rights reserved.

Mar 29 through Apr 2, 1986 (Written on Nov 28, 1998)

Getting Arrested for a Human Act?

A Close Encounter with Prison in Venice

by

Manfred P.

Keywords: Italy, Venice, tourist, travel trip report, travel log, travelogue.

It is Easter and as Austrian student I get a week off. Easter vacations. Saying that I am really working hard is an understatement. My head is smoking frequently with the heavy study-load I put on myself. I decide to use the official course break to take a few days off. I deserve it.

With the winter finally gone and the first warm sun beams coming through, everything starts to blossom. So does my desire to get away from it all. Just like the leaves I strive for the sun. Given to limited time, the bast place to catch some rays is Italy. On short notice I decide to hitchhike to Venice.

It took me from early morning till late afternoon to get from Linz, Austria, to Mestre, the twin city of Venice. At sunrise I walked with my bag from my Dad’s home to the highway on-ramp 6 miles away. Once on the freeway I hitched rides from Linz via Innsbruck and Bolzano to Trento. Here I switched to thumbing a lift on the surface road to Mestre. On the surface road a gay man in his 40ies picked me up in his brand-new Renault diesel. Of course, I didn’t know he was gay. Not initially anyway. We talked about the usual topics: where I am from, where I am heading to, what I plan to do in Italy, etc. After a while he started talking to me about my looks. I thought it was a rather strange subject, but innocent as I am I didn’t think more about it. Then he gave me some story that he doesn’t usually give lifts to strangers but that I look just like his son and he therefore feels attracted to me. I still didn’t realize what was really going on and that he was trying to pick me up in a sexual sense. I was stupid, or let’s call it inexperienced. While I didn’t get the sexual overtones I did comprehend that his "you look like my son" story was a lie. This and his other remarks made me feel uncomfortable. Being on a surface road he then stopped for late lunch. He wanted to buy me lunch, a drink, etc. Of course I refused. For every one of his come-ons he got a "no" as response. While he slowly started to annoy me he was going in my direction, directly to Venice, after all. I put up with his come-ons during his lunch and then for a while in the car after we continued. I didn’t feel threatened or for my safety as he was single and had no strong stature. But soon the annoyance got too big and I felt to uncomfortable. At the next gas station I got out, told him that I didn’t want to reach Venice today, and walked away. After he drove off I walked back to the gas station and it wasn’t too difficult to find a new ride. One who was not gay.

Late afternoon, barely before sunset, I got off in Mestre. Mestre is an ugly industrial city with no real tourist sights. I had to find a place to stay. I found an abandoned house without doors and roofs. All sorts of trash were littering the floor. Pretty terrible actually, but it was a roof over my head. I cleaned the litter from a wooden door that was lying on the concrete floor, placed my sleeping bag on it and that was my bed for the night. I didn’t feel comfortable and the thought of rats crossed my mind at one point in time before falling asleep. But once asleep it didn’t matter if it was an abandoned house or a 3-star hotel room. I was kind of glad to get out of that dump in the morning.

From Mestre it is just a matter of an hour to get to Venice. In order to get a better sleeping quarter for the next nights I went by boat to the Le Zitelle Island just off San Marco Plaza. From my travel guide I knew that the youth hostel has shared quarters for $10. But to my surprise they informed me that with Easter and all there was no vacancy. I should have known. I wasn’t the only one with this problem. Others were also counting on staying in the youth hostel with no backup plan. The next cheapest place anywhere near Venice is five times as or more expensive. I met a couple Americans and a few other guys. The insider tip soon was to spend the night at the Stazione Santa Lucia, the main railroad station.

I strolled through Venice and viewed all the famous tourist sights like San Marco Piazetta, the Campanile, Palazzio Ducale, Canal Grande, San Simeone and Ponte de Rialto. The evening I spend with two US marines I met in the afternoon. Under President Reagan’s order the US military had shot down two Libyan fighter jets over the Mediterranean. That caused high tension in the Mediterranean region. US aircraft carriers were sent here to patrol the ocean. After enough weeks on duty the marines would get a week-off and the aircraft carrier would be stationed in Venice for that time. Hundreds of marines flooded the city and it was impossible not to cross their path. You could spot them from a mile. Their looks, shaven heads, uniforms and their shouting gave them away.

One of the guys I met and hung out with was from Texas; I can’t remember from which state the other was. But both were proud Americans, proud of the best place in the world, Texas; proud of having shot down Gaddafi’s jets; proud of the military; proud of their looks; proud of their ability to drink beer. Together we were sitting on San Marco Square and talk up some Italian girls. It was fun for the girls and me to observe the drunken US marines. Their language was phenomenal. Every sentence had to include at least two occurrences of the "f*ck" word. It is a very flexible word. I learned that it can be used as an adjective to literally any noun, as an adverb and as a verb. Too bad it can’t be used as an article.

A night I walked to the Stazione Santa Lucia train station. To my surprise it was crowded. There were two dozen people already sleeping in the main terminal room. They were nicely and orderly lined up along the wall. Each one had 2 to 3 square yards of space, the sleeping bag perpendicular to the wall and the head at the wall. It was funny how orderly everything was here. Like this is a legal and established resort. I loved it. With this crowd it would be boring and I wouldn’t have to worry about police or cleanup crews hassling me. When I lay down I was even more pleasantly surprised. The marble or stone floor was heated. By coincidence the plumbing for warm water must have run just under our sleeping bags. It was amazing, like a heated sleeping bag. I slept well.

The next day I took a boat to San Giorgio Maggiore and visited the markets including a floating market. Lunch time I spent at Campo San Stefano soaking up the sunshine, literally basking in the sun. To pass some time I made a simple and primitive drawing of the square. I still keep this drawing in a folder.

At night when I returned to the train station I had to pee. I went to the toilet at the station but it was locked with some sign in Italian. I could quite read what the sign sad but I guessed it was something like "locked for the night" or "out of order". Needing to go urgently, I quickly walked out of the station looking for a restaurant or something. While searching for a toilet I passed by a construction site with big piles of sand and rubble. In my need and lack of time, I used one of the piles to urinate. While urinating I observed that I was being watched by two policemen. I didn’t think much about it and continued my started business. After zipping up, I passed the cops. To my surprise they stopped me. Then they took my passport and brought me to the nearest police station. First they pointed me towards a chair and let me wait for half-hour. Then some cops asked me what I was doing and explained that I have to pay a fine of some large amount. Paying whatever amount it was for peeing on a pile of dirt at a construction site because the public toilets were locked? I didn’t think so. I said I don’t have that amount of money and emptied my wallet in front of them. They said that if I can’t pay I have to go to jail. Jail? I got worried now and started begging and arguing and tried to explain to them that I didn’t do it on purpose and that I had tried the public toilets first unsuccessfully, etc. It didn’t do the trick. I have to go to jail. Some more arguing back and forth. Eventually they leave and I sit another hour in the police station. Then one of the cops comes back, hands me my passport and says "Leave Venice tomorrow morning".

I was relieved and went back to the train station where I had another comfortable and social night. The next day I didn’t leave. I still had a few more sights to see. Once I was seen what I came here for to see I headed back to Austria. It took again a full day to hitchhike from Venice via Padova, Verona, Trento, Innsbruck, to Linz.

The impressions of this trip were strong, so strong that they will stay engraved in my memory for dozens of years to come. I was young and easily impressed by the various experiences. It really was quite a unique Easter time.