Venice & Rome ... Day Ten

Day ten started really early since our train to Rome left at 8:30, or at least that's what I thought.  We got all packed and dressed before I looked at our tickets to confirm everything, and it actually said
14:05.  Seriously, that was news to us!  D actually had gotten the later time so we could at least have a day in Venice.  I didn't want to spend a ton of time there, but I was saddened to think we couldn't at least see the main attractions in the light.   Everything is better in the light. 

We had a whole afternoon of possibilities.  We walked around looking for somewhere to have breakfast.  Finally after longer than necessary, we found a cute little bakery to stop in.

This was our first experience to true Italian culture!  We walked in and there were quite a few people in by the pastry counter.  We were there for maybe 2-3 minutes, and we were super intimidated.  People were rushing in, ordering in Italian and then quickly leaving.  We didn't see anyone sitting, and I'm pretty sure when we ordered latte's we got looked at like we were high maintenance.  Everyone just stands at the counter and orders, eats quickly, chugs their espresso shot and goes about their business.  We were those Americans, and we sat at the window, took in the people watching and enjoyed our breakfast.  All ten minutes of it. 

We still had to check out, so we walked back to the hotel.  Apparently 8am is when all the kiddos walk to school, and we were walking in the opposite direction.  I loved seeing all the styles they were wearing and the groups that walked by.  Sadly about a third of them were already smoking.

We actually ended up still checking out of our hotel and then keeping our locked luggage in their storage closet for the duration of our time in Venice.  Now we were really ready to explore. 

Since I didn't plan on really having time in Venice, the only things I knew I wanted to see was St. Mark's Bascilla and D knew about the main bridge called Riatlo Bridge.  So, with D's GPS in hand, we headed that way.  We actually stumbled upon this one.  It's actually kind of dirty, when you are walking over it, but the pictures from the bridge are really pretty. 

As we got closer, there were actually hand written signs and arrows leading us there.  We turned a corner and there it was! 

Hello, beautiful.  We were super early and the Bascilla didn't actually open until 10, so we took a ton of pictures.  We then walked down by the water, took even more pictures and strolled through a small park nearby.

The water there is the most amazing color.  I loved it, although at times it didn't always smell the best, but you can't see that in the pictures. 

It's sad because you can't really make out the beauty in the picture, but this is a gorgeous view.  This is one of the main canals that would take you all the way through the city. 

There was so many elements that I found beautiful, so we took lots of pictures.  These are only probably 1/16 of them.

We walked around, killing time and taking in the sites until the Bascilla was open.  Saint Mark's Bascilla really is breathtaking in person.  Every aspect of the outside facade and the abundance of gold is overwhelming.  Your eye is constantly looking from one amazing aspect to another. 

The amount of decor is almost too much for one to appreciate in one visit.  Once we were done gawking at the Basilica, we ventured around the city on the way back towards the hotel.

Since we really had no other plans for the day.  We decided to walked around the pier and happened upon the fish and produce market, which was right up my alley. 

I love local produce and wished that we could have gotten some of the great things they were selling there.  How amazing it is to live with the seasons and only eat what you can find growing in the local farms. 

D made fun of me for taking so many pictures of the produce, but how could you not?!?  Hello, beautiful artichokes.

We walked back to the main street where our hotel was and got some pizza we were drawn to through the window.  Once we had lunch out in the back patio, we grabbed our luggage from the hotel.  Since it had actually warmed up a little bit, we got our very first taste of gelato.  I'm not actually sure why we had waited so long.  Sitting outside in front of one of the buildings, we people watched and enjoyed our sweet treat.  It was the best way to end that afternoon. 

Somehow we still had about 30-40 minutes to pass, so what else do we do?  We get some wine and beer at a local cafe and enjoy the heat from the sun.  I loved people watching.  Some people were still bundled up in their winter coats.  I shed mine and loved feeling warmth for the first time in a over a week!  D made the mistake of ordering beer and it cost about double what my wine cost.  Welcome to Italy.

This was the outside of the station, where we sat on the stairs for a little while that afternoon. 

You can see the building we first took a picture of as we got off the train yesterday.  Such a different feel in the light.  I did capture a picture of the Venice train station, which you literally just walk up to this screen, and the station is more open than any of the others we'd experienced. 



This was a super fancy high speed train.  Can you tell how excited D was to be headed to Rome?

Well if nothing else, I was excited to eat this Nutella donut!  Um, I almost didn't share with D.  It was that good.

I tried to spend as much of my time on the trains enjoying the scenery.  This trip didn't take too long, but once we arrived in the Rome station, it was quite the ordeal.  You see, if you remember correctly, we don't actually have a phone on this trip.  We've been heavily relying on WiFi, particularly at the Starbucks at the stations.  My main concern, other than we had no idea where we were going, was that we had to check into our stay by 20:00, which only gave us a small window to get there. 

We didn't actually know that Rome (actually all of Italy) doesn't have Starbucks.  It's not a part of their culture, since they drink espresso so differently.  We hadn't noticed in Venice because we didn't need WiFi in the station.  Well, it was quite a mess in Rome.  We searched for a business that offered free WiFi, but were unsuccessful.  We tried two different pay phones and tried to talk with someone in order to call our contact from AirBnB, since he had to drive in to Rome to give us the keys.  Needless to say, after about 45 minutes of stress and anger, we still couldn't figure out how to get a hold of him.  We finally just grabbed a cab and gave them the address of where we were going. I was super frustrated.  We had no idea if we were going to be able to call him, nor did we know if there would be any restaurants/shops near by that may have a phone. 

This was our first driving experience in Europe and the Italians are crazy. The 'road' is literally a line in the middle where you can fit as many small cars as you can between that line and the buildings.  It was the most intense driving I've ever seen.  We made it there, well at least as close to our building as the buildings would allow.  The car was actually too big to get into the little street we were on. 

Luckily, we were right by a restaurant and D was able to call our contact.  After what felt like hours, we finally made it into our little condo.  The guy we met with was amazing.  He gave us the full tour, provided us with maps and pointed out some of the main attractions/street to stick with while we were there.  He also told us about the best spot to eat and drink in the area. 

After all that traveling we were starving.  We felt like we should go eat at the place that let us use their phone.  They had super cheap wine, which made the night easier.  The food was just okay, not quite sure what pizza D ordered though...

Then it was off two bed for the two of us.  

Swiss Alps & Venice ... Day Nine

One would expect after the last night in Munich that we would sleep in a little and wake up a little less than cheery.   It was probably the roughest morning of our entire trip, but we had a train to catch and things to do before hand, so we powered through.  Since it was so easy, we had breakfast in our hotel (I was a little less excited about it the second time around) and then finished packing.  We checked out a little early and then headed to the train station.  We had a day trip from Munich to Venice that went through the Swiss Alps.

Our early arrival to the station meant a stop in to Starbucks and another attempt at spelling Darrell:

The station, like most in Europe, was really open.  We were excited to finally see our train pull up, and we headed to find our seats for the journey.

We had decent seats, but I was surprised by how full this train was compared to any of the other ones that we had traveled on.  We had seats by each other and then had one lady that sat directly across from me.  She actually was seated in D's seat, but we just went along with it.  She traveled most of the way with us.

As the train started to depart, I decided to finally break in to some snacks.  Remember the amazing market from yesterday?  That's where these beauties came from, and I was so excited to open this bag up.  It was really hard not to just eat the whole thing.

 

I can not tell you how beautiful the scenery was on this train ride.  I tried to take pictures, but truly, they do not do justice to what your eyes take in.  It was my favorite train ride, and I highly recommend it for anyone traveling between Germany and Italy.   Below you can see the Alps as a beautiful background to one of the many amazing cities that we passed by.  At the beginning of our train ride it was pretty foggy and cloudy, but that burned off the farther south we got. .

It was such a picturesque area.  I can't image waking up this gorgeous scene every day.

There was so much to see, from castles built off the side of the mountains to frozen waterfalls.  My mouth seriously dropped as we approached this bridge.  Again, this picture doesn't capture the ridiculous height or the cars as they drove over this towering bridge.  I can't image actually driving over it personally, holy cow.

Then as we got farther and farther south, we saw more and more of the wine country.  Hills filled with vineyards as far as the eye could see and taking up every usable inch of space for the vines.  It was beautiful and made me wish we had a bottle of wine to enjoy on the way.

This was one of my favorite pictures from the train ride.  Of course it's filtered through Instragram, but it's just so darn pretty.  How can you not enjoy this scenery?!?

Multiple times on our trip we would actually go through a mountain and it would be completely dark.  The longest tunnel was about five minutes.  As we approached Venice the sun was setting, and by the time we got off the train and checked into our hotel, it was dark.  This is literally the view across the canal as you get off the train.

There is just something magical about the city on water.

The hotel was quite the experience and literally 200 feet from the station.  When we checked in, they asked to see our passports, which was a first, but seemed reasonable.  Then they proceeded to ask us to leave them with them for 10-15 minutes so they could finalize the check in.  I did not feel comfortable just leaving my passport with them.  We finally made it up to the room which was, by far, not the most amazing hotel.  It was small, but got us by for the one night that we were there.

This picture is a little blurry, but you can see that it's basically just a bed in a room slightly bigger and a bathroom.  We didn't stay in there long and headed out to see the city, even if it was dark.

We had such good food on the trip , but this was definitely one of my favorite meals.  My friend went on her honeymoon earlier this year, and said we had to eat at this restaurant.  She warned me that it was off the beaten path, but well worth the trip.  She wasn't lying.  We started walking towards the restaurant.  We luckily had D's GPS guiding the way because we were the only ones walking in the area.  It's not like Venice is the nicest or prettiest city, so being the only ones walking around didn't seem like a good thing.  I thought it took us way longer to get there then we expected, and we almost gave up, but finally we found it. 

We, of course, had to reward ourselves on finding it with a bottle of wine.  This was the start of many bottles of wine we indulged in throughout Italy and France.  

It was a cute little restaurant, not very large and not super busy by the time we got there.  Really, we were probably early considering how Italians eat. 

Our first course that we shared with the best pasta I had.  My mouth waters just looking at it.  These homemade noodles with a sausage (of sorts) and the most decadent sauce = pure heaven. 

I got a second course of fish, but what made it the best meal was dessert.  This tiramisu was the best thing ever.  I've not had tiramisu like this before and probably won't again.  It was so good!  I'm pretty sure I licked the glass.  No, not really, but I wanted to.  The little ginger biscuits that came with it, just topped it off. 

We were completely stuffed on the walk back to the hotel.  With our bellies full, we slept really great that night.