Venezia, Italia

Tuesday night we left for Venice, Italy.  Steve dropped us off at the train station where we waited one hour for our late train.  At this point we were all relatively happy about the trip despite some minor ill-feelings about packing.  Notice we have 3 bookbags here instead of 4.  We talked Mom out of bringing 5 changes of clothes for Emilie, 2 pairs of shoes for Emilie, a medicine cabinet, her heavy ipad, and a pantry full of snacks.  

(We were only going to be in Italy for 1 night and 2 days and required minimal supplies.)

Our overnight train finally arrived and we began our journey!  We had 1 sleeper car with 6 beds; it was extremely close quarters.

 

There were 3 beds on each side of the little car and, as you can see, the lady in the middle occupied our 6th bed.  Thank goodness she was friendly.

 Unfortunately our train car was boiling hot all night long.  Elizabeth moved from the top bunk to the little floor space in the middle of the beds because she literally almost suffocated to death.  We woke up exhausted, sweaty, and I believe this photo captures the feeling quite nicely.

Our train finally arrived in Venice!

We first walked around a little bit and found our hotel.  Venice is beautiful and we loved the canals!

There are no cars, busses, or taxis on the island, just boats!  The public transportation is a system of waterboats called the Vaporetto.  We bought 5 Vaporetto tickets and headed for the nearby island of Burano (the 2nd largest of the 3 islands near Venice).  

The waterboats were a good opportunity for us to rest and catch a breeze.  It was hot and we were all exhausted from the overnight train.

Gondolas!

 Murano, Burano, and Torcello are the three small islands in Venice.  Burano, the island we traveled to first, is known for its colorful houses and lacework.  

We had our first Italian pizza for lunch!

 After lunch and walking around Burano we felt revived and headed back via waterbus to the main island of Venice.

After more walking in the hot sun we finally stopped for a relaxing dinner by the water.

 After dinner we were absolutely exhausted and walked around a few hours before heading to the hotel for bed.

belly dancers in the street

Italian gelato!

After bedtime for the kids and old folks, the more hardy travelers ventured back into the city for Venice's nightlife.

We payed an exorbitant amount for beers (13 Euros each) but thoroughly enjoyed the music!  Venice is amazing at night!

The real beds at the hotel were a major improvement from our previous night's sleep.  The girls stayed in this room and Mom and Dad had their own room. 

That next morning our tour guide, Emilie, showed us more sites in Venice!  She read the book cover to cover and was very informative.

To escape the heat we hopped on another waterbus and headed to the island of Murano, known for its glass-blowing.

We walked around Murano and visited many shops with glasswork.  

Pizza again!  We couldn't get enough!

After Murano we hopped on a bus at 3pm to Austria and then boarded a train heading back to Vienna.  We were due to arrive in Vienna at 12:00 midnight!  

We enjoyed this Euro Jet train ride.  It was MUCH better than the overnight train.

We rode through the beautiful Alps!

We were able to stretch out and enjoy the ride.

If you have made it this far on this long Italy post, you are almost to the end.  Now, using the famous words of Andy McFall, "to make a long story short...", I'll sum up the final leg of our journey.

Our train was 1 hour late.  The subways were closed so we had to take taxis (multiple) because it was after 1am and none of the drivers spoke English at all.  After wandering in several dark alleys, mom in full-out panic mode (rightfully so, it was scary), and major stress, we finally arrived at Ruth and Steve's around 2am.  

Unfortunately the 11 hour journey home from 3pm to 2am was enough to make Mom and Dad totally write off traveling ever again.  Dad said, "This is it for me."  

Hopefully the rest of our trip will change their minds!