Thursday, April 26, 2012

Venice on my mind . . .

Alright, here comes the second half of our adventures this weekend!

After our night in Bolzano, we woke up and wandered around the city until we found a cafe for breakfast. Cappucinos and chocolate brioche is the best way to start the day! After breakfast we hopped on a bus and headed toward the center of town. Before WWI, Bolzano was part of the Austro-Hungarian county of Tyrol, but was annexed by Italy at the end of the war. Because of this, the city has a very Austrian/German feel to it and many of its inhabitants speak German instead of Italian. We walked (Nate crutched) around the city for awhile, got some snacks for our train ride, got a bratwurst for lunch, and then headed to the train station to begin our journey to Venice!

Boys waiting for the bus

The Bolzano Cathedral

Me & the hubby

Jordan enjoying his bratwurst!

Eric & Nate - Nate really wanted to do the 'foot pop' for his picture



Our train ride from Bolzano to Venice was 4 hours. We stopped halfway through in Verona to trade trains. Nate was a serious champ during this entire weekend! The train stations have lots of stairs, and to get to the different 'terminals' for your train, you have to go up and down the many stairs. Needless to say, he was happy to just be able to sit for awhile on the train! Jordan and Nate had never been on a train before, so the entire ride they kept talking about how much fun it was and how much they loved it! Too cute! Here we are during the ride!




When we got to Venice . . . it was raining haha. No big deal though, we just picked up our bags and used Eric's GPS on his iphone to trek to our hostel! After being lost for quite some time, we finally found it! An unmarked door in a back alley . . . that's not shady at all! Turns out, it was actually quite nice inside, and we were the only four people staying there so the place was ours! After resting for a little bit, we decided to roam around the city and see what we could see! We took a water taxi and visited St. Mark's square, and then walked around a little bit more.



Eric had found a review of a restaurant online which was very close to our hostel so we decided to try and find it for dinner.  When we walked into the restaurant and asked them for a table for four, they replied with "It is impossible". Here in Italy, if someone can't do something, this is always their response which really cracks me up. Since we weren't going to be able to sit down, we stood at the bar and had wine and fried meat balls. Both were very delicious! When a table of people stood up to leave, Eric asked the owners of the restaurant again if we could sit at their table and this time they said yes! Guess it wasn't so impossible after all :) We enjoyed a nice little dinner and then decided it was time to head home! The next morning, Eric, Jordan, and I decided to go get breakfast at a local cafe while Nate took a nap . . . he said taking a shower had really tuckered him out so he needed to rest for a bit haha. After breakfast we picked up our things and Nate and trekked back to the train station in the rain. We snapped a few pics before we headed out!

I realize I'm doing 'the eyebrow thing', but it was raining pretty hard and i was trying to keep it out of my eye :)


Of course we couldn't leave Venice without a little bit of drama . . .
We purchased our train tickets and went to platform 9 to get on our train. We had great seats and nobody was on our train! We were so looking forward to our ride home because we thought we might get to spread out and have our train car all to ourselves! Until . . . Jordan noticed that the sign outside our train didn't have anything posted on it, and we grew weary of there not being another soul on our train. Eric went to check the board again while we picked up our bags and headed off the train. Turns out our train was two platforms over, and it was pulling out of the station as we all rounded the corner. Normally this would not be an issue, but since we had a plane to catch in Verona, we became a little worried. We ended up having to buy new tickets for the fast train (our old tickets counted toward our new ticket so they weren't that expensive), and arrived in Verona 20 minutes after our original train arrived. A $20 cab ride later and we were at the airport headed back home to our dear sweet Catania. We had so much fun and we are really excited for our next adventure this weekend! Jordan has a game in Regio Emilia and then I have a flag football tournament in Ferrara! Can't wait!

Missing Texas dearly,

Ciao

1 comment:

  1. Great, great blogs! Thanks so much for the updates on the latest Great Lake Adventures!

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