Venice

We got up early the next morning to the sun and beautiful scenery outside. A picture I had become so accustomed to while I lived there, but had forgotten. The cloud separated the mountains from the town; it was beautiful.

Be boarded our train somewhere in the neighborhood of 6:50am, and rode through beautiful Austria. I don't recall anything overly exciting or noteworthy in our first leg. From Villach - Venice we required reservations and have been given 2nd class reservations (even though we had a first class ticket). The car we had reservations in, was full, so we selected another less full car. IN that car, was a chatty girl. She was a student in Salzburg studying, and she knew everything. At least she thought she did. She was entertaining for a while.

We arrived in Venice around noon, and purchased waterbus tickets valud for 48 hours. They were 26 euro's each!

As it turns out we did not require the bus as much as we expected to, and were able to find our way quite easily, thanks to my husband, who surprisingly...is fantastic with maps! I was honestly shocked and very proud of my husband, when we arrived!

Our hotel Al Portico Guest House was run/owned by a very nice lady named Stacy, who showed us around and took us to our room - 6. It was exactly what I expected for Venice, although the bed looked saggy (it wasn't...but it looked it).

We decided to get on our way and shortly after found ourself in a mess of people EVERYWHERE! We sat for a while, and then onwards again.

We took a lovely gondola ride, and shared it with a cute little family form Poland.

St. Marks Square was an absolute mess of wall to wall people. We walked as quickly though there as we could, and found a semi-busy street, lined with painters.

We had an excellent meal on the canal, right beside the Rialto Bridge and enjoyed a rest for our feet. We jumped on a water bus after perusing a bunch of mask stores and finding Troy a Bayern Munich t-shirt knock-off.

The waterbuss took us to S. Elena where we found a beautiful park and some more great photo's. We got very lost here, and ended up wandering around for 2+ hours, trying to make our way back to the hotel.

After finally arriving back to our hotel, we got some dessert at the restaurant next to our hotel, which Stacy also owned, with her husband. It was so delicious!!!

Our 2nd day in Venice we headed to the neighbouring island of Murano. We saw a glass making demonstration which was quite something and then set put to find some beautiful Murano Glass artifacts. We didn't fall in love with anything, so settled for walking around, looking in shops. We did find several we liked a lot, but all of them had 3-4 digit price tags.

We got some pizza for lunch at another cafe along the canal, and once again, rested our sore feet. We headed back to Venice, with empty hands, for a siesta. Mmmm Naps.

We got up again and headed out around 6pm for the train station to purchase our reservations for the next day. We also did some shopping, and found the perfect mask for Lisa, along with some other trinkets.

We ate dinner at a lovely canal, and it was quite nice. Cannelloni, salmon(me), Chicken (Troy) and Ensalate Misto to share. We also shared a small pitcher of wine. It was great!

We had to pay for our stay in cash, since Stacy's Credit card machine was not working. Who would have known it would be so hard! We tried 6 times before we got any cash. A couple ATM's were broken down, some were out of cash, and some were incompatible with our cards. Finally success, after walking around about 1 hour.

Things to remember:
~Crazy coffee lady who would not give me cream for my coffee.
~Cute old man in Stacy's Restaurant, who spoke with us about his servants, and buttons, and how he is a teacher of building restorations at the Venice Uni.
~Man who nearly lost his arm and camera when Asian man on water bus nearly closed the window on his arm.
~Little Baby Chubster and her cross-eyes.
~Banks In Venice try to maximize their bank fee's by limiting withdrawals to 250 Euro's, even though that may be far less than a daily limit.
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