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Published: October 9th 2012
Finding this place was a piece of cake
It was once we got inside we got lost.Finally some time to hopefully catch up on the blog.
As mentioned in the earlier blog Oktoberfest in Munich and sightseeing around Ulm was great, however we always knew catching a 5:44 am train from Ulm back to Munich and then transfering onto another train to Venice was going to be a challenge.
We knew it wouldnt be impossible, after all when at home we can get up at 2:00am and drive for 12 -13 hours to get to Exmouth no problems at all. So sitting on 2 trains for all up about 7 hours SHOULD be a piece of cake.
The alarm was set for 4:15am and the hotel in Ulm had very kindly organised us some takeaway breakfast for the early start which consisted of 5 ham rolls, 5 cheese rolls, 5 apples, 5 (very big juice boxes) and 5 'smelly' hard boiled eggs.
We walked from the Hotel about 10 minutes to Ulm train station and arrived with 30 mins to spare, easy done we thought, now all we got to do is wait for the train. After checking with the conductor which platform we needed to wait on. He advised us the train
We are inside now
And about to get lost, trying to find where we return the audio guides and the exit we had booked on to take us to Munich was running about 45 mins late, which would get us into Munich too late to catch the transfer to Venice
Long story and translation cut short, we ended immediately boarding a different train which was doing a milk run but got us to Munich, with about 5 minutes to spare, to find the train, platform and carriage for the train to take us to Venice. Once the train arrived at Munich we had to run with all our luggage plus kids to the Venice train and fortunatley arrived with about 1 minute to spare.
It took the rest of the day for the heart rates to settle.
Venice was lovely, once we knew we were on the correct train which arrived at Venice about 2:00pm, we knew we had the rest of the afternoon to find the hotel and look around. We had about a 15 minute walk to our hotel with luggage, which again was an adventure, up an over bridges and dodging the thousands of other tourists.
Once we dropped our luggage off at the hotel, we spent the rest of the afternoon exploring Venice,
At the Roman Forum.
Some pretty spectacular ruins, however John wanted to start his own souvenir shop, selling rocks. trying hard not to get lost, but we did manage to do that numerous times. However we did get our bearings for the next day, finding St Marks Square and St Marks Basilica.
The next day we headed off in a different direction but made sure we ended up at St Marks Square so the kids could feed the pigeons some left over breakfast rolls. We even managed a Gondola ride in the afternoon which was enjoyable as it took you away from the hustle and bustle of the noisy streets.
Although thousands of tourists had the same idea of visiting Venice at the same time we did, Tanya and the girls thoroughly enjoyed it.
Yesterday we were up again early (although not quite as early as the previous train ride) and this time caught a high speed train from Venice to Rome (total time on the train about 3 and a half hours, the top speed I noticed whilst on the train was 259km per hour) fortunatley it was not running late or any hiccups and we comfortably made the departure time in Venice and destination in Rome.
Today we have spent exploring the Colusseum,
Why hadnt anyone thought of this before?
All it was going to take was some careful digging. Roman Forum, Palatine Hill and Trevi Fountain, all amazing and we also got a handle on catching the Metro (underground) around Rome. Also John did some archeological excavation of his own and I will load the photos hopefully tomorrow.
Hope you had a great birthday Dad.
We hope everyone is keeping well.
Take care.
Love
Darren, Tanya, Carolyn, Hayley and John
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