Road(train) to Venice

We left Munich (Munchen,as Germans call it) early but managed to squeeze in little bit of Munich siteseeing. We saw shopping centre, city hall and famous Cathedral where one can see the entire city of Munich if one willing to climb up many many steps. We did not go up.... =)

Our train ride to Venice was much more interesting because it was lined with tiny cities as well as some castles. Everytime Lyna and I tried to take a picture trees or electric poll or something got in our way so it was rather frustrating but we each had good laugh out of each other's mishaps.

When we reached Venice's main station it was around 6:30pm and we had good fortune of not having any kind of reservation. =) It was Thursday and so we figured there should be a plenty of rooms available. We were told to go to San Marco square at night so we figured we should just find lodging near San Marco and had one particular one in mind. (Guide book said it was good value for Venice). Our idea of Venice was small island which we can cover by foot. When we asked direction to San Marco we were told it would take us an 1 hour and we should take 'vaporetto' so we took the advise and yes... it took the boat 45 minutes to get to San Marco square. So glad we took 'vaporetto' =)

Our only problem was.... the hotel we had in mind had no ROOMS!!! They were fully booked. So we were stuck with choice of either going back near train station or go to rather expensive looking hotel. Eventually we found Hotel Astoria which had room at a reasonable price for Venice. Lovely.....

With our lodging issue solved, we went out to see this famous San Marco square at night and yes... it was lovely. Not just the lights, buildings and hundres of tourist but there was 2 bands giving free concerts! at the square. Looked like they were hired by restaurants to entice customers but who cares... it's free concert! One of the group actually played all the songs from Sound of Music. =) Could have stayed there all evening but it started to rain so we've decided to call it a night and go for a early Gondola ride the next morning.

p.s. I was enchanted by all the masks for masquerade balls and glass jewerlies. Colours and details of those masks were just gorgous. Wanted to buy all of them but couldn't so had to settle for a picture.