Getting away from cold Germany

(about Venice, Italy, added on Oct 19, 2006)

We got up


at 4:30am after just about 4 hours of sleep. Not really enough to go on a long


trip, but who cares, 2 drivers can easily take turns so it's not much of a


torture. Once we got up, I quickly searched for a decent deal on some Venice hotel for about


half the normal price due to some last minute offer. We left Ravensburg looking


for a nice little warm escape and after we got into a snow storm in Austria we were


even more excited to head south. I had never seen snow this late in the year in


Austria.


The guy at the gasoline station strongly recommended taking the tunnel instead


of the mountain roads to cross the Alps and so


we did. It's always amazing to take the tunnel. It's one of the longest tunnels


in Europe and the weather changes quite a bit


when you reach the other side.

After we


had reached Italy,


the weather changed, still clouds on the sky but nice and warm after just about


3 hours of driving. The road is winding down passing Bolzano and other Northern Italian cities.


The mountains are completely different here, not so much together with small


steep canyons but wide valleys with spectacular cliffs on both sides.

Around 1pm


we finally reached Venice.


We immediately found our hotel which was on the landside of Venice;


the new city.


We went up to our room to have a brief break from the long drive, took a shower


and then finally headed towards old town.


Venice is amazing, I had never been in Venice before. I have seen


most Northern Italian cities and many all the way down to Naples


and Paestum, but never the Perl of the Adriatic Sea. I never felt that I had missed anything,


but boy was I amazed to see all that beauty. Everywhere you look is worth


another picture, every corner with the cute little windows, the balconies with


their luscious green from the herbs and flowers reaching out through the brass


railings. Combine that beauty with the tiny streets and most importantly the


hundreds of canals that spread through the city and you feel a step closer to


that fairy tale medieval city we all dreamt of when we were kids.

Walking


through Venice


is like a never ending labyrinth; your mind can barely grasp the amount of


detail. Every little brick had been worked on over the centuries and you can


really see the result. After walking through the city and having crossed the


Canale Grande with one of the many Gondolas, we finally found our way to the San Marco Square


with the great market hall and the big old seal of Venice, a Lion with wings on blue bricks.


Most Americans are familiar with this site as I have been, but not because of


the pictures that cover the travel guides or their personal travel experiences


in Italy, but really because of the famous hotel in Las Vegas which has been


built in a way to reflect the most important attractions in Venice.

Quite


amazing that because I have been there many times, this was the number one spot


I wanted to see. Not sure if that's sad or whether that should be regarded as a


good thing.

After


looking through the streets and naturally the shops some more, we started to


work our way back to the bus station, where as always we got 10 different


answers from 10 different people. This is nothing unusual in Italy.

After we


got back to the hotel, we stopped again at the hotel and then went for dinner


shortly after. We had a nice appetizer, preserved artichoke hearts and some


Spaghetti, steak, and what I always get Bresaola Pizza with Rucola on top.


After our beautiful and eventful day we deserved to rest a bit before we would


continue our trip the next morning.