Day 20 - Venice

We arrived at the train station in Venice about 8 pm.  The station sits right on the Grand Canal, so we walked off the train and it felt like a fairy tale.  We weren't off the train 10 minutes and it was picture time at dusk.  The streets really are water with little bridges all over. (great for the thighs).  Cory is becoming quite the navigator and he successfully got us to our room about a 10 minute walk from the train station.  We dropped luggage and left for a walk, on the hunt for somewhere to fill Cory's tummy.

We walked along the canal and took a turn down a side canal and found this adorable canal side restaurant to eat.  I had pork liver and onions with polenta and it was outstanding.  Cory had protein, beef for the first time and salmon.  Then back to the room.  It had been a long day.  Cory found a unsecured wireless network, so that is when i sent the last blog and planned for austria.  even caught a little of the cards game before i fell asleep.

Cory is sleeping still this morning.  We are planning a day here in Venice and then will take a night train to Salzburg.  In reading my book, sights in Austria will be sooo different.  Looking forward to the change.

We had to check out by 11 today, so we stored our luggage at the reservation desk of our guest room and headed out for the day.

Our first stop was the train station since we had decided to go to Salzburg in stead of Vienna.  We had lodging for tomorrow night and planned to take the night train tonight.  So we waited to get a ticket.  We are getting good at this.  We knew what time it left and just asked for what we wanted.  The man "helping" us i don't think spoke english very well so that was a problem.  When he finally understood what we wanted, there was a problem, but he didn't communicate with us, just had us standing there for about 10 minutes and each time we tried to inquire he gave us the "wait a minute" sign.  Finally his supervisor came over and after about 5 more minutes told us the train was full!  That had never happened before and honestly we didn't believe it, so we went to train information because when we asked if there is another route he said no.  The lady at the train info gave us a different route so we went back to buy the ticket and decided that if we had to go to that guy again, we would pass our turn and wait for someone else.  Luckily we didn't get him, but the lady next to him.  We gave her the info and she put it in and told us it would be 365 euros!!  That couldn't be, so she got her supervisor and then told us there was a direct train from Venice to Salzburg (the original one we asked for).  We told her that the guy next to her told us it was full.  It wasn't and she booked our tickets for 49euros.  While we were being helped there was this poor couple dealing with our guy.  Just as we were about to finish up we noticed the guy get all flustered, closed his window and pulled down his shade.  The couple didn't know what to do, so we sent them over to the train info station were we got help and told them that guy didn't help us either.  This was the first time we really encountered anything like this at the train stations.

Heidi suggested we take a water bus to Lido, an island south of Venice, so that is what we did.  The water bus took us through the Grand Canal and we saw just about all of Venice from the water.  What a great way to see Venice.  As we made our way toward Lido we passed magnificant churches and historic buildings that stood out from all the side canals and bridges.  The entire time we were in Venice, we did not see one car.  there were some city busses but we only saw them parked at the station and never in the city.  The streets, if you want to call them that, are too small.  they are more like wide sidewalks and everything is cobblestone, no concrete or asphalt.  The water busses have bus stops on the canal, just like a regular bus would.  You buy a ticket and board the boat and you better be fast!  These water busses make the subways in Paris and Rome look pokey.  The bus pulls up, the deck hand ties up the boat, opens the gate to let the passengers off and you literally have the time for those in line to board and she closes the gate, unties the boat and it is off.  They don't care if you are not sure what bus you want, they just leave.  Luckily we knew where we wanted to go and that wasn't a problem so once on board we went to the back so we could ride outside and see everything.

It took about 20 minutes to make it to Lido and once we stepped off the boat we thought we entered a different country.  The landscape was totally different.  Ever since Paris we have seen narrow streets lined with 3 to 10 story stucco buildings, laundry hanging out of open windows and tons of closed shutters and NO grass or green space.  There were some trees, but not many.  Now we enter a city with wide streets and gated homes with lawns filled with flowers and shrubs.  Wide sidewalks lined with trees and flowers and not so many little shops.  We walked for about a mile and in the middle of suburbia is this huge stretch of sandy beach, miles long with a hand full of people there.  We just relaxed there for a while, enjoying the sun and water.

We had to retrieve our luggage before six so we headed back.  This time we got off the water bus at the Piazza of San Marco.  It was second in size to St. Peters and very much different in look.  It was flanked with the church of St. Mark on one end but it was undergoing some major exterior work, so only a portion was visable, still massive in structure.  The other 3 sides of the rectangular piazza were all the same, looked like 3 story old office buildings with unique architecture around each window and of course the statues atop the buildings.  Not much going on, but there were several small bands/musical ansembles (spelling never was good) preforming for the large crowds.  We walked through and followed the walk back to the guest house.  I was 100% lost!  and i had no idea how to figure out the map since there were not streets like in the cities, just LOTS of little walkways. The map reminded me of those maze puzzles where you have to go from start to finish without hitting a dead end.  Literally it was a maze and Cory single handedly delivered us on time to the guest house.  We got our bags, grabbed a little something to eat, since we hadn't had anything since bread at breakfast, looked in a few stores and headed for our night train to Salzburg.

I am writing to you from the train and will send it as soon as I have internet service.  I am looking forward to the change of scenery in Austria.  I loved Italy but all good things must come to an end.  Arevadercie, it was wonderful!!!