WE'VE REACHED ITALY!!! Yippeeeeee!! I think Claire and I have been looking forward to this leg of the journey since we started off!! The land of pizza and pasta and cannoli and biscotti and COFFEE!! We have checked off at least three of that in our first day here as we've been exploring the beautiful Venezia!
We were originally hoping to have a few days here in Venice, or at least two, but unfortunately our wee pockets couldn't fulfil that...we arrived to the tail end of the Venetian Film Festival and so the price of accommodation, which is usually in the top end of our budget, was skyrocketed! Therefore with the the flexibility that the interail pass gives you, a wee change of plan, we spent the day in Venice and in the evening we headed to Florence for a couple of nights.
But first I'll tell you about Venice.
Arriving early off the overnight train (which claire may have mentioned was a LOT more comfortable that the first one we did) we got started in Venice shortly after 9am. After dumping our bigger backpacks at a left luggage we rushed off to explore this amesome city in the little time we had. Even upon exiting the train station...wow.
As recommended by a fellow traveller we met on the train from Vienna we turned left and kept walking gradually round to our right.
But first, coffee. Our first experience at an Italian coffee bar, we started off easy with a relatively quite looking coffee bar with only a couple of locals in it. The ones closest to the train station were a hive of hectic caffeine buzzed Italians shouting across the bar to be served. We ordered two lattes and two brioche buns (we couldn't quite handle an espresso yet) and I tell you that what they say about Italian coffee being the best really is true! This might have been the best coffee I've ever tasted, and I immediately regretted having it filled with soya milk! Haha. It was a bit of an adjustment to just stand there at the counter/bar and drink your coffee, surrounded by the buzz.
Letting our feet guide us we continued exploring the streets, canals, and bridges of Venice for next few hours, letting our curiously take over until eventually our bellies started grumbling a little and we were in need of somewhere to shelter form the heat of the midday sun. another coffee with Biscotti this time!
We discovered a lot while wondering the alleys and canals of Venice. Like if you wonder long enough you either reach a dead end in the form of a brick wall, or the alley just stops and you've reached the endless of a canal. Another thing we noticed is that once you have left the business of the town squares or the train station, or the main harbour...you lose the majority of those horrible tourists (definitely not us🙃)! Haha like that it is quite nice to wander about feeling relatively on our own and having the options to choose well traveled routes or explore the quieter less traveled ones. After many many bridges and alleys and small squares we made it to Piazza St Marco. This is probably one of the most iconic scenes of Venice (as seen in James Bond fo example), and oh boy did the number of tourists reflect it. The massive St Marco church was the main centre piece in this gigantic square, and once you cough for a space where there were no selfie sticks blocking your view (or worse selfie sticks endangering your head/personal space) the view was rather nice.
After all this waking and tourist dodging, we needed another break. Queue the pizza per favore!!!
I think these pictures pretty much sum up our experience! A little expensive but we were in the middle of Venice. I think we sat here for a lonnnng time , mostly trying to finish these gigantic pizzas! (Even claire was deleted in the end!!)
We then wandered slowly back to the train station, to book seats on our train to Florence, we wanted into some Venetian gift shops, took some photos (a lot more coming when we get to a good computer with a card reader!!)
As we had another hour to wait before our train left we though it was about time for a wee glass of wine to keep us going. We found a nice wine bar on the corner of a town square and wrote some postcards. At this time of night this square was flooded with a beautiful golden light. Families of locals were clustered around the square; children playing, grandparents reading papers, artists sketching, and even some animals making friends...it was a a very pleasant last hour to spend in this glorious city! We don't have any pictures because pictures wouldn't be enough.
We picked up our bags and headed for Florence. The train was only about 2 and a half hours since we had booked seats on the super fast one. We were in Florence by 9:30 and even though the it was a bit out of the town we were very very happy when we arrived the . We were especially happy when the lady at the seat had said that there had been a wee mixup at their end so our reservation had been upgraded. * Queue our wee happy dance once we had ar iced our wee private room with out OWN en-suite bathroom!!!*
Sleep caught up with us quickly tonight!
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