Venezia!

Our train was every bit as painfully early as expected. Due to a certain amount of paranoia about missing it, we reached the station some time before it left and tea and hot chocolate didn't entirely wake us up. Still, the train ride itself was fine. We were in a compartment with four others (one of whom was definitely on the scatty side) and there was lots of beautiful scenery as we crossed the Alps into Italy. We had lunch on the train in the restaurant which was a new experience and quite tasty. We arrived in Venice at 2 and were greeted by a wave of heat. There's a noticeable difference now we're further south.

Venice itself is mad. Crammed full of people, bridges, narrow streets, gondolas, souvenir shops... We've been taking it slowly because of the heat and doing a lot of sitting around watching the world go by from the shade. However, we've made it to Murano and the glass museum there, and to St Mark's Square as well as Rialto and been on several water buses (vaporetto).

We're staying on the mainland in Mestre (it's cheaper) and are getting a bus in every day from just outside our hotel which is very handy. It's also very crowded as everyone else does exactly the same thing so we've had several sardine-esque situations!

Benjamin's Italian is proving its worth though fortunately, for the more complex things in life, most people speak some English so we're getting by just fine. Tomorrow we leave for Rome, which is slightly cheaper than we thought as there doesn't seem to be a huge supplement to pay. It is a slower train but that means we spend the hot part of the day on it rather than out in the sun!

Goodbye Vienna

So tomorrow morning we leave Vienna. Our train (leaving from the other side of town) leaves at the ridiculously early time of 6:23am, meaning waking up before 5am. Erk! Still, it's a 7 hour train ride, so we get time to nap on the way.

So what have we been up to in Vienna? Well, quite a few things and also some rest. The biggest thing we did was to visit the Schonbrunn Schloss, which is a summer palace a little bit away from the centre of Vienna. I've been to Versailles, and it was very much like a smaller version of that - say about 30% smaller. It was enjoyable enough though I think the bit Rebecca enjoyed the most was the demonstration on how to make the local dessert, apple strudle :) Going around the maze, strolling around the grounds and the 40-room tour were all very enjoyable too. We'll be going to Versailles later in our travels too.

We've done quite a bit of strolling around and also resting our feet too... there's one heck of a lot of walking on this holiday and there's no way we could walk all day every day. Whilst resting today we sat down in the Cafe Demel, where we had Sacher torte, which apparently is a famous cake from these parts (though I had never heard of it) and has been the subject of legal battles in the past. It was indeed very tasty and very rich, though it did leave my tummy feeling quite funny for a few hours after.

Also, as previously mentioned, we went to Bratislava for a day. This was an interesting day out for sure, as Slovakia felt a very different country. It's had many different influences and has certainly been influenced more by Russia and communism than the rest of Europe we have visited has. Also the language is very different, with lots of y's and z's and accents that I had never seen before. We were both very grateful to the guy I knew from there who guided us round the city and showed us the sights. The castle was interesting, as was the longest asymetrical bridge in Europe. From the castle we could see the far side of the river, where massive amount of tower blocks had been built (a definite result of communist influences)... it was an incredible sight, never seen quite such a dense area of population before. We also went to the guy's house and played a board game, which is always nice :)

The guy also let us use his internet connection, so we have uploaded a few more photos now, up until half way through our day to Königstein, so only part of the way through our third day I'm afraid!

I think the hotel in Venice has internet, so we should be able to update you there as well.