Europe Bus Tour-2010 - Italy - Venice

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Onto Venice

Breakfast in this place is worth mentioning. You can order omelets here. There was local cheese, all kinds of pasties and banana bread. This place also had a coffee machine similar to Koningshof. We left the hotel around 8:40 am. We headed towards Italy through Brenner pass. The Alpine range was still with us and we were treated to breathtaking scenes. The mountains were with us until we made a turn in Verona. After that
We turned left toward the Adriatic sea. We took a break in a rest area. Italian coffee is supposed to be very good. Every small rest area stops sell coffee. It also seemed Italy is less expensive. It took 3:30 hours to reach Venice mainland. Venice islands can be reached by boat. We first stopped for lunch at Maharani restaurant. We got the similar menu that we are getting used to now. Dhal makhani, alu matter, peas curry, pulav, nan and yogurt. Revolt is on the way!
After lunch, we took a boat to Venice. It was extremely hot and the boat was very cramped. By 3 PM, we were looking at the canals. We had 3 hours to spend in Venice. First, we took a quick tour of St. Mark Square. Temperature was reaching 40. Tour manager Ritesh sponsored a scoop of ice cream for all. After the tour of the square, we explored the option of hiring a Gondola. But we dropped the idea. Merchants is this area are often rude. With the tourist crowd, heat and rude merchants, we were not enjoying Venice as it should be enjoyed. We bought tickets to go up the clock tower to get the areal view of Venice. Nice! There were public restrooms at the end of the square, but need to pay one euro. So we decided to go into a coffee shop, get some drinks and use the toilet. Cappucinio was very good. As part of the tour we also visited Morano glass factory. Some of the items made in that glass were exquisite. By 6:30 we left the Island to the main land Venice.
We directly went to another Indian restaurant, GourmIndia, where we had dinner, I had a glass of wine here. It is Italy! We drove for about 30 minutes to readh Padova. Here we stayed in a brand new hotel called B4 hotels. It is a 22 story glass building, with 8 floors of hotle space. The rooms looked like some space age inventions. Their shower fixtures are very new and modern, half the people staying there could not use them properly. Beds were very good. After 10 PM, I came down to the bar area and had another glass of wine. I met Uma there and we chatted for a while there. Bed time 11:30 PM

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