An overnight train ride and then the beautiful city of Venice

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We race...very literally through the train station to the platform to just make it on our train to Venice from Amsterdam. Surprisingly tempers are not high and we laugh off the experience as we get comfortable in our first class seats. We are not the first class type but our travel agent said it was worth the extra if only for the free food. We nestled in comfortably and enjoyed wine and all sorts of nibbles to keep us entertained. Unfortunately this train was not for long and we hopped of in Paris and switched to our overnight train with the sleeper.

Once we squished into our room we quickly threw our suitcases above our heads then spread out on the seats with a deck of cards bought from Disneyland, Paris. This was the first real chance we had to stop and look back over our adventures of the last week or so. After getting engaged under the Eiffel Tower in Paris only days earlier this gave us a chance to even start talking weddings.

We then rearranged the cabin again so that we now fell asleep on our bunk beds, reasonably comfy. There was never really a debate whether or not we shared with 6 other people or got our own cabin, we were always going to have our own. The price for the room, we thought, was very expensive, ($321per person) but was cheaper than flying at the time we booked. It was a fun little adventure and a good chance to stop and reflect so we thought it was a good choice in the end.

We woke up and looked out our window as we neared the city of Venice, and Nathan could hardly contain his excitement. Venice, the city on water, was at the top of his list for our Europe adventure. Once off the train we walked through the train station and out onto the street...which was a river. And oh how exciting that was. We eventually found our hotel, which we knew would be a bit tricky to find and was warned to not get lost as it is easy to do here. We ditched the bags, in one of the nicest, and roomiest hotels we had stayed in yet (Malibran hotel).

Let the adventure begin, we strolled through tiny streets, sent postcards, ate gelato, ate pizza, ate pasta, ate more gelato and stood in the centre of St Marks Square (Piazza San Marco) in awe of Venice's beauty. Unfortunately Saint Mark's Basilica was half under construction but that didn't bother us. We walked up to the viewing deck where we looked back at where we stood in the busy square below us. We gazed at the gold ceiling inside the basilica and marvelled at the life sized bronze/copper horses both the original ones inside (bought to Venice in 1254) and the replicas outside. We then explored the Doge's palace where we saw a glimpse of our cruise boat we were to board the next day out one of the windows.

No trip to Venice is complete without an over-priced ride on a Gondola. Although our gondolier (driver) didn't sing he showed us the home of traveller Marco Polo among other places of interest. The half an hour trip along the grand canal and smaller canals was well worth the money and we recommend you bite the bullet and do it.

We ended our adventures with dinner at our hotel which was one of the best meals we had had all trip. The Malibran Hotel, for those of you taking notes. The next morning we boarded the cruise boat, Norwegian Spirit, for the next bit of our adventure.

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