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The bridge from Hell
The first bridge we walked across in Venice with our bags!!DAY SIXTEEN - VENICE
By Sandra: Woke to a clear day with no rain, and we were all ready to go out and explore Venice without anything particular in mind. After we all had breakfast together we set off on separate paths for the day, with the plan to meet up for lunch or dinner together.
Jenny and I set off enjoying wandering through the streets, stopping for our first coffee of the day, the hot type!! We had a lovely Panini with ham and mozzarella which was really yummy and then walked on enjoying looking at the shops, buildings and canals.
As we walked into San Marco the sunshine hit the square and we decided to indulge ourselves and stop in the square at the tables and listen to the music that was being played. As soon as we sat down we were approached by a lovely waiter who opened our menu to the page that pointed out that if you sat down you had to pay 5 Euros each just to listen to the music, as well as the exhorbidant costs of the actual drinks! But Jenny and I decided that we would use our Mother's Day
money from Nick and Hayden to treat ourselves to this experience. It was really lovely sitting there sipping our drinks, listening to the classical music and watching everyone walk by. It was also funny watching other tourists sit down and be shown the menu, only to get up and walk off quickly when they realised the price! So after two drinks (one drink each only) and a 30 Euro bill, an hour had passed and we had felt thoroughly spoilt.
We walked on, managing to get ourselves well and truly lost a couple of times, but we did find a really quiet part of Venice with no tourists and we loved just walking through the quiet streets and soaking up the atmosphere. We stopped at a tiny little trattoria where we had a bruschette platter in their garden at the back, very quiet and relaxing.
Then we wandered on back to the busy part of Venice, did a bit of shopping and then stopped off at our now "local" bar for a drink on the way home. Who should we spot, but Robyn and Pete having had a gelato and then following it up with a red wine,
interesting combination. Pete has been suffering from a cold, and now it looks like Robyn has picked it up too. Nothing to do with me and my cold, I think more likely to be from getting wet in the Cinque Terre.
After our drink we headed home to get ready to go out for our last dinner in Venice. Robyn had seen a place close to home that had the required flower boxes and was on the canal so we decided that was the place to go. When we arrived there were no tables outside and the waiter asked us to wait as in 1 minute one would be free. Jenny said to him that a free drink would help us wait, and the waiter laughed. A couple of minutes later he returned with four glasses of melon liqueur for us - trust Jenny to get free drinks!! We decided to have the tourist menu as it was 3 courses for 17 Euros with no cover charge or service charge. That was the biggest problem eating in Venice they all charged 1 or 2 Euros per person cover charge and 12% service charge and so eating out was quite
expensive, especially when you are on a budget!
Jenny and I decided to head back to the apartment and Peter and Robyn went for a stroll down to the grand canal to look at the lights. We all feel that we have loved Venice, but we have had sufficient time there and are looking forward to moving on.
BY PETER - Today Rob and I wandered aimlessly through the back streets of Venice, intent on losing our way. For lunch I had a calzone pizza (the biggest and best I have had in Italy). It was about 30cm wide and 15cm high. Even fat people walked past my plate and were in awe of my pizza. I worried about eating it until it deflated with my first cut. We wandered from where we were staying and across to the railway station and back to San Marco's square. We took in the splendour of the Doges Palace before running into Sandra and Jenny at the local. Vino was had by all and then back to our apartment for champagne. Our dinner was by a small canal where we met a honeymoon couple who used to live 30 minutes from
Warracknabeal.
After dinner Robyn and I walked to San Marco's square. To be there at night with the crowds, listening to a 5 piece orchestra was something again. Onwards then to the top of the Rialto bridge to take in the lights of Venice, constant movement of boats on the water, buildings reflecting on the canal. I could have stayed their til dawn. Venice at night is truly beautiful.
DAY SEVENTEEN - VENICE TO TORINO
We were all up early, tidied the apartment and packed our now heaving bags! Jenny and Robyn had spat the dummy and refused to lug their bags over the bridges to the local water bus stop, so Jenny and Peter went down to the canal and organised a water taxi to pick us up just outside our apartment and take us to the station. Even though Pete and I hated to admit it, they were right (ex gratia), it was a great ride with a chance to view the sights of Venice on our way to the station in comfort and arrive at the station much less stressed than when we arrived at our apartment a few days earlier. After that success now
Robyn and Jenny want to take over the organisation of the next holiday (all I can say is "Oh No").
When we arrived at the station we checked our baggage into the left luggage area and were then free to walk the streets of Venice for the last time free of those heavy cases. We all admit Pete is right, we have brought far too many clothes and shoes and bought too much, and next time he is going to go through the bags and dispose of all the excess baggage, (oh come on Pete 5 scarves isn't too much is it??).
Its Sunday and Mother's Day and so Robyn, Jenny and I sat by the canal in a local bar (by the way they actually serve coffee in the bar's in Italy, doesn't mean we had any!) Pete decided to go and take those final photo's of Venice and met us at the bar in time for us to walk to the station and catch the train to Milan and then onto Torino.
Those bags were a problem, getting them on and off the train nearly killed poor Pete. The first part of the trip was
uneventful with us checking out the scenery as the train sped toward Milan. At Milan the atmosphere at the station changed dramatically as soon as we stepped off the train and had the help of a guy on the train to help Pete unload our nine pieces of luggage. A gypsy came up to us and tried to load our bags onto a trolley which we quickly stopped. We found the next train we needed and as we did not have reserved seats this time we hopped on the nearest train coach available, with a group of seven gypsies. Thanks to the advice of Marina, we stayed with our luggage to make sure that it was not removed from the train, as did all of the rest of the passengers. Eventually everyone moved their luggage to where they were sitting in order to ensure that it was safe. Jenny ended up sitting on her bag on the seat and we had luggage on the table and everywhere. Lucky it was only an hour train ride. I must admit that this is the first time I have felt concerned about our luggage on the whole trip.
We arrived in Torino,
tired and dirty and were glad that Peter and Jenny had organised a hotel right across the road from the station and it only involved one flight of steps with those horrible, horrible cases!! You can tell we were well over the suitcases by this stage and we all decided we were going to go to find the post office and send back some clothes and shoes and general junk!! After we had checked into the hotel we all decided we were starving as we had not had any lunch and so we went out for dinner at 6.30, very early by Italian standards but we couldn't wait. We found a lovely little Ristorante who served a great spagetti bolognaise and pizza, and also Pete's favourte Calzonie. We all felt sick we had eaten so much so we went for a stroll around Torino and decided that it was a good idea to stop at this charming city before going onto France. An early night was had by all!!
DAY EIGHTEEN - TORINO
Day dawned sunny, but not warm. Well we had a mission, get rid of that luggage, so after breakfast we found our way to the local
post office. Once we made it past the market without buying anything (apart from Rob who bought a pair of shoes to replace the ones that she threw in the bin) which was amazing, we waited our turn at the busy post office, until Jenny pretended not to understand the ticket system and a helpful post office employee assisted us work out what to do and we ended up walking out with 2 big boxes and 1 medium size one ready to lighten our loads.
We went back to the hotel and started the culling process of all the old clothes and those clothes we had not even worn on the trip, still I insist that 5 scarves don't weigh much!! We lugged our heavy boxes a total of 19 kilo's of clothes and shoes, back to the post office and again waited our turn in the busy post office. We were surprised by Robyn who said she was waiting for our English speaking post office employee to return, she called him "Aperto" and there were two "Chisio's" working. We all rolled around the floor of the post office much to the delight of the on lookers as we
explained to Robyn that Aperto meant Closed and Chiosio (Cant spell it) meant open. Another fun time that we will all remember!
Finally it was our turn and after much scribbling out on the customs document (apparently you cant send 2nd hand clothes back to Australia ??? So we had to call them gifts - nobody would want these clothes as gifts I am sure!!) and laughing with the postal workers who spoke very limited English we were finally back with manageable suitcases. It was 12 o'clock by the time we had finished so we went straight away and had some lunch.
Robyn and Pete were going to do some shopping,but Robyn was feeling pretty yuk with the cold so she was going to go back to the hotel to rest while Peter explored. Jenny and I headed off for the market (to see if we could fill the suitcases up again - only joking Pete!!) and then spent the rest of the afternoon wandering the streets of this lovely city. Definitely worth stopping here and we felt we could have had an extra day to wander around, but it's onto Paris tomorrow.
Continued by Peter:
Rob
was coming down with cold, we shopped for a while then she went back to the hotel to rest. She wanted to be firing ( and shopping) on all cylinders when we arrived in Paris. I spent the afternoon walking round Torino and then on to the Egyptian Museum, ( Largest collection outside of Egypt ). I lined up for 30 minutes to enter and was not dissappointed with the exhibits, I was able to take photos of artifacts and mummies that I was not allowed to do in the Cairo Museum. By now it was time for me to head back for my five thirty appointment ( Vino at Bar Milano!!!). Off to dinner and a pit stop at the local to purchase a cask of vino for the train ride to Paris in the morning. The platter we had for dinner, which had been spotted earlier by Jenny & Sandra, was simply amazing!!!! The platter itself was a metre in diameter and contained plates and plates of the most incredible finger foods, pasta, seafood, vegetables, pizza and many things we didnt recognise, however it was all wonderful. We struggled to finish the lot but we think we did
a pretty good job of it.
We had a great final dinner in Italy sitting outside our restaurant on a marble walkway with a columned verandah overlooking a large fountain and beautiful old buildings on the wide streets of Torino. We all agree Torino had been a great stopover on the way to Paris. Home now to polish off the last of the Lemoncello and arrange a wake up call to catch the early train to Paris!!!! (NB - Editors note - Robyn and I are not apart of the Lemoncello drinking, we are not up to it and prefer our night time cup of tea, when we can get one. Jen & Pete say that they only drink it as it aids digestion ha, ha!)
PARIS HERE WE COME!!
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Brenda
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Luggage
Hey Sandra, Did I tell you that we did our holiday in Europe with only one domestic-size, carry on bag each? This did us for a month. It's the only way to go. Saves giving Terry a bad back for the trip. We take lots of IceBreaker merino clothing that you can lightly wash in the evening and it's ready to go next morning. Wonderful stuff.