H - Zurich/Venice

15

Tuesday, 5 July 2011

Day 15. 29th June. Zurich to Venice

We set off again from Zurich to Venice via Milan. This was a fantastic train ride right through the Swiss Alps. Amazingly stunning country with mountains so big they are hard to describe. They erupt out the otherwise flat land in the most dramatic rise I have seen. Raina said it made her respect the Von Trap family a bit more for running from the Nazis and hiding in the mountains. We even saw some snow, in summer. Awesome. The colour of the rivers and lakes is incredible, a translucent pale greenish blue. It is clearly glacial rivers and looks incredibly cold.

All over the place there were highways through the mountains and instead of making a road 'S' bend up and back down a mountain they tend to build tunnels straight through the mountains. And where they don’t do that, they build a bridge across a valley. These bridges hundreds of meters high cut across from one hill (at the foot of the giant mountains) to the other.

So much corn. Once we passed through the Alps into Italy we started seeing a monstrous amount of corn crops.

The train trip was pretty nice, comfy, and spacious and we had space to ourselves. Although we do believe that we got ripped off by the drink and snack server. Because we found out later that each passenger gets one free drink and snack. When I went to track him down I asked him how much and he told me the price, so I played. As one usually does in this situation. This happened again when Raina asked the price of water and he said 4:80 Swiss Francs. For a bottle of water? So we think he was pocketing the cash and giving us the free drink we were owed. Pig man.

We had a stop over and train change in Milan. Our train from Zurich got held up for all of 10 minutes. We don’t know why, the announcement was in German. :P But this led to us missing our connection by mere minutes.

So we used our unexpected layover well (struggling with aching feet, copious amounts of luggage and sweat dripping – it is so damn hot). We eventually got one seat so Raina sat with all the luggage and I wandered around looking at shops and stuff. We purchased a bangle and a scarf; it is necessary to by fashion items in this fashion capital.

We finally made it to Venice. Now I was always aware that Venice is a canal city, that the people use the water as a usual means of transportation. What I did not realize till I arrived is that there are no other vehicles in Venice. At all. No cars, no scooters, no bikes, nothing. It is boats or walking. And in many case walking alone is impossible, as you can’t cross the canals. There are many bridges, but boats are necessary.

The city is absolutely stunning, gorgeous and pretty in every direction. We used the Vaperetto to get around. This is the equivalent of a bus I guess, but a boat. The first time we caught this, burdened with all our luggage we were rather chuffed with ourselves to have sorted out the route to take and arrived so early to secure good seats near a window. It was later we realized we were in fact sitting on the pontoon, the waiting lounge. Oops, we did however manage to get onto the boat and navigate our way. Though we walked about twice the distance from the dock to our hotel in the wrong direction, over several bridges with many stairs, with our ridiculous freaking heavy bags. And it was so hot. 

However we did find the hotel and from there it was wonderful – a very old monestry.

I cannot get over the complete and utter lack or roads, grass and vehicles. To think that there may well be people who have lived in and never left Venice in all their life and as such have never seen a car. Or, a dog born in Venice who may never have seen grass. By the way, there are heaps of dogs. They get taken for walks around the streets.

We wandered around, looked at shops and the picturesque canals. Then had dinner at a not too bad pasta place. To our shock though we were charged a cover charge at this restaurant. Apparently that is not so uncommon in Europe. I get it for clubs but not restaurants. It was a gorgeous little place on a canal where the tourist gondola rides leave from, so there was lots to look at. 

16

Tuesday, 5 July 2011

Day 16. 30th June. Day in Venice, evening train to Roma

We started off wandering somewhat aimlessly and then went for a Gondola ride. An obscenely expensive activity but something of a must do in Venice. It was lovely. The boat was beautiful and the Gondolier (driver) sang as we passed through the canals. He was the Gondolier who toured the Pope around Venice.

We stopped and got a cup of fruit each. I got pineapple and Raina got Melon (each of favorite fruits), a good cupful that cost only 1 Euro. Nice.

We saw the markets that apparently appear in the movie the Tourist, and stock some amazing things. One fish stall, has a marlin (sword fish) head on display, sword sticking up, it was massive. 

Again we marveled at how everything here is water based, like garbage disposal trucks, police, builders doing construction work. Everything- it all has to be transported by water.

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Then the train trip to Rome, corn corn corn, then wheat wheat wheat, then wine wine wine, the sunflowers sunflowers sunflowers. All the crops appear to be very confined to a geographical area.

We arrived late in Rome and really only got to walk from the train station and crash out at the hotel. Lots of walking today, and also running to make trains.

Odd thing. In Italy, they don’t give you doonas to sleep, only an awful scratchy blanket and the beds are rock hard. Both hotels were pretty identical in this respect.