Italy! - England Part Eight

Sunday 29 May 2016

We arrived in Italy Saturday evening and took a bus to the hotel we had waiting for us across the street from the train station a little bit outside of Venice.  The plan was to take a train to Milan the next morning.  We had gone to church (at least Sacrament meeting) every Sunday on our vacation up to this point, but we had decided since we were in Italy and probably wouldn't understand the meeting, we wouldn't go this Sunday.  Yeah...not the best idea.  We managed to miss our train, so we had to wait for several hours for the next one.  We had already checked out of our hotel, so we had to wait at the train station with all of our luggage.  By the time we finally got on the train, we were both stressed and grumpy.  We decided from now on, we will at least try to make it to Sacrament meeting on Sundays when we are travelling.  If it isn't feasible, that's okay, as long as we make an effort to look into it.

The Italian countryside was beautiful, and looked just like we expected it to.

When we got to Milan, it was raining.  We were quite tired, so we rested a little when we got to the hotel

Then we went exploring.  We saw the Duomo, although we did not go inside.

With the rain, we got to see the gargoyles in action.

Right next to the Duomo is this indoor/outdoor shopping mall.  Since it was Sunday, we didn't go into the shops much, but the architecture was really cool.  (We did buy some gelato, though - we couldn't resist!)

Then we walked back to our hotel.  Everything was so Italian!  The buildings really do just look neat on the outside.

We had an American to UK plug, but we didn't realize until we were in England that we would need a different adapter in France and England.  Then this Italian hotel had even another kind of plug (luckily they also provided an adapter), so we had a stack of 3 adapters for our American electronic devices!

Monday 30 May 2016

We got up Monday morning, ate breakfast at the hotel, and had the receptionist call us a cab.  It was still raining (it was so wet!).  But then we took the train from Milan to Verona.  When we got there, we paid to store our luggage at the station so we could wander freely.  We did a mixture of public transport and walking around Verona.  We also met a couple from Canada who I think were backpacking around Europe.  It was fun to meet someone from our neck of the woods in such a foreign place.

Aaah I love these Italian buildings!

We love the movie Letters to Juliet, so we were excited to see Juliet's balcony.

There is a sort of tunnel/passageway leading to the courtyard where the balcony is, and a lot of the letters people leave are on the wall in the passageway.  If there really is a group that actually responds to them, they have there hands full.  There are a lot of letters.

Italian gelato is very yummy.

It rained on us a bit here, too, but it was still pretty.

Then it was back on the train to Venice, with some lovely Italian vineyards along the way!

Venice is out on an island (they claim there's land there somewhere, but I think the city is just built on sheer Italian stubborness), but the train still took us across the water to the city.  My cute hubby fell asleep on the train :)

There it is!  My first sight of Venice!

When we got off the train, we fell for one of those guys who offer to help you and then want a tip (whoops!), but that's okay.  We tipped him and it was all good.  Then we had to take an elevator up to the main level, and some of the other people in line for the elevator just sort of pushed their way in front of us!  What?

Then we came out of the station and saw the boats on the water.  Our reaction was basically, "Oh my gosh we're in Venice!  It looks just like Venice!  Like, in the movies, and stuff!"  It was seriously so cool.

We had a little bit of a walk to our hotel, but it let us start seeing the city.

We wanted to get out and wander, and we also needed dinner, so we didn't really set a plan, we just left the hotel and started wandering.  We ended up finding this church, which is apparently actually one of their tourist attractions, the Basilica dei Frari, but we didn't realize it at the time.

We found dinner, and I wanted to order fish because, I mean, we were on an island!  So they brought it out to the table, and deboned it in front of me!  It was crazy, and he was so fast!  I was just glad I didn't have to do it myself!

Tuesday 31 May 2016

Tuesday, we actually had a sort of plan.  First, we knew we wanted to go to Murano, which is a sort of separate island where they make hand-blown glass artwork -- jewelry, light fixtures, etc.  We also picked up a map with a couple of walking tours that would take you past historic and iconic buildings.

First thing we did was purchase "bus" fare.  I put that in quotes because Venice's buses are boats.  It's awesome.  I also bought a cute floppy hat because it was sunny, and I could feel my head starting to burn after being out for just a short period of time.  Then it was on the "bus" to Murano!

When we got to Murano, we found a glass blowing shop that lets you see a demonstration.  It was pretty neat.

There were a couple of chandeliers in their workshop (I was glad I took a picture of these because they don't want you to take pictures in the galleries where they sell their work).

Then we wandered some more.  We may have gotten a tiny bit lost trying to find the center of town, but it was fun.

More Italian buildings!!!

We also ate lunch on Murano.  I don't remember what the place was called, but their customer service was so good!  Peter ordered a dish he wanted to try, but he wasn't a huge fan after he got it.  The waiter noticed, and Peter didn't want to admit he didn't like it (I mean, we knew we were trying something new and taking our chances! haha) but the waiter insisted on bringing out something else for Peter, and on giving us a discount!

Back to Venice proper!

A "bus"

A "taxi"

Then we started our walking tour.

The Bridge of Sighs - built when Marino Grimani was Doge (1595-1605)

Italian balconies!

The Scuola Dalmata di San Giorgio - dedicated to 3 Saints, Girolamo, George, and Trifone

Some of the roads were pretty narrow.

The church of Santi Giovanni e Paulo, which contains the tombs of 25 Doges

The Rialto Bridge - I really wanted a picture of this bridge at night, but I'm not sure I ever got one.  There was some construction around and it was hard to find a good angle to take a picture from.

The Clock Tower - built between 1496 and 1599

The Piazza San Marco

The Bell Tower - the oldest bell tower in Venice, built between 888-1912.  

Ironically, we had American food for dinner on our last night in Italy.  We found a Hard Rock Cafe.  The food was good, though.

We had planned on taking a ride on a gondola, but when we stopped to look at prices, the gondola driver was really pushy, and I just said, no - too expensive and too pushy!  Besides, we had spent a lot of time on boats that day, so we didn't feel that much need to get on another one.  In fact, just riding the bus boat back to the hotel provided some really lovely views of the city at night.

Wednesday 1 June 2016

Our flight out of Venice was at 7am, but we had to take like an hour bus ride to get to the airport.  We also wanted to make sure we got there early, so we were on an early, early
bus.  We had to get up at like 4am.  So we got up, finished packing up and got dressed and went down to the lobby.  The hotel had very kindly provided bagged breakfasts for us to take with us.  We got down there and discovered there was another couple they were also providing bagged breakfasts for.  We started glancing in the bags, and the receptionist says irritably, "they're all the same."  I was so mad.  First of all, I was tired because we were up really early.  Second of all, they were not all the same.  They had variations of similar things, but they were not the same.

So then we went to the bus station and waited for the bus.  I was a little worried they wouldn't let us on with all our luggage, but it was fine.  We got to the airport, and they didn't have any information about where we were supposed to check in.  So we wandered the airport for a bit, trying to figure out where we were supposed to go.  Finally we found out which line we should be in, but we stood there for a long time, with the line not moving at all.  They couldn't open the check-in yet for some reason, so we waited there with the people behind the counter doing nothing.

Finally, they started checking people in, and the line started moving very slowly.  Then we see this guy go around the line and up towards the counter, and he just sort of stands off to the side.  When they finished with one customer, he just moves up to the counter like it's his turn, even though all of the rest of us had been waiting for 45 minutes to an hour.

Eventually we made it into the actual airport, and I was hungry again.  So I got in a long line and got a pastry and some hot chocolate.  Then we waited for our plane.  We decided American airlines have things figured out a little better than European ones do.  For American airlines, they tell you exactly when you need to get in line and call you by section to facilitate easy loading of the airplane.  There in Venice, there came a point in time where people just started lining up, with no announcement (that we heard, anyway).  So we reluctantly got in line, not sure how long we would have to wait.  And sure enough we see the same guy from the luggage line, just waiting in his seat, and then when the line actually starts moving, he just stands up and gets in the line towards the front.  We were baffled.

Tiredly waiting for our airplane

We flew from Venice to Brussels, and then after not too long a wait in Brussels, on to London.

In London we grabbed lunch at a pub.  A last serving of bangers and mash, along with, more importantly, a last serving of J20.  We ended up waiting a long time for our lunch food, also.  We think they forgot about us.  But they did give us a second serving of J20 for free (refills are not free in Europe), so that was nice.

Then it was on to home.  It was about a 10 hour flight.  I timed my sleeping well.  I slept on the flight from Venice to Brussels, and then on the long flight, I read/watched movies for part of it, and slept for just enough of it to kind of start getting myself back in the right time zone.  Poor Peter, on the other hand, slept for too much of the flight back from London, and was all thrown off when we got home.

It was overall a wonderful trip.  I'm so glad we took the opportunity to go.  I wasn't sure we should, but Peter convinced me that if we didn't go when we did, it would be a long time before we'd get another opportunity.  I'm so glad we went - it was a blast!