Venice, Italy to Milan, Italy - Fashion Capitol of the World

Tuesday, September 30

Another very strange night of sleep in our bunk bed hall with curtains. We got up around 7:30 am to catch our last first class train to Milan, Italy. Charlie was in charge of giving the key back to "Christmas Eve" as we named her. She instructed him to eat breakfast before we left but we had a good excuse to skip out of it today.

Our last ride in first class treated us well. We had an entire 6 person car to ourselves complete with closed door. Heather went in search of the bathroom to find 2nd class packed with people sitting and standing in the halls... kind of sort of made us feel bad with 4 extra seats, but not too bad since we were forced to pay for 1st class!?! We snacked the train ride away with banana and nutella sandwiches, yum! The scenery was nice, very typical northern italy.

We are always surprised to see how much graffiti europe has. It's actually quite sad in some of the old beautiful cities to see it scarred this way.

We arrived in Milan around 1pm and stepped in to a huge grand train station. The ceilings in the main lobby must have been 60' feet tall and all with carvings and wonderful architecture. If this is what the train station looked like we were very impressed. And within 2 minutes of walking outside we saw a super model doing a fashion shoot. Heather rolled her eyes and said... "really they are out everywhere?!" The model looked to weigh about 80 lbs and most of that being her 2' tall hair and another 5 lbs of make up. Okay enough of that, maybe we will find her a sammich to eat so she doesn't waste away.

We had rough directions to find the hostel that included a bus ride. In our directions it stated we bought the ticket on the bus. Turns out we scammed a free ride in the end... ha ha.

Milan 0, Heather Charlie 1

The bus dropped us off right at our hostel which to our great great happy surprised turned out to be a 1 star hotel. I think a one star hotel in Italy is a bit nicer than any 1 star in the states. We had a huge private balcony that over looks fountains, landscaped yards and other buildings in the square. Our our complaint would be that they seem to stick a bid-ay in any spare space in Europe... we say ick to that.

Charlie tried to take a quick nap as he's been feeling very worn down and a bit sick the last few days while Heather read. A bit later we took off explore the area around our hostel. We usually like to stick close the first night since we don't have a great idea of the streets and getting lost would probably involve a costly taxi ride home. We ate lunch at a little cafe which we were the only customers there. Charlie had penne puntensca, and Heather had the old stand by of spaghetti carbonarra. We did our usual routine of "find free wi fi" with no luck. No Starbucks in Italy and our old reliable McDonnalds required you to have a cell phone to get a text message with the code to use the wi fi. No good to us, we haven't used a phone in over a month. It was hard to get a good feel of the city being it was a cloudy day. But it wasn't hard to tell that fashion was #1 here.

Deciding a night in might be more fun than wondering around. We went back to the hotel asked for directions to the market and headed out again. To give the report of the cost of tiramisu: 1.55 Euros for a single. (if you remember that's how we gauge the price of a city). We browsed the store, which is one of our favorite things to do, looking at funny foods we dont have in the states and marveling at their fresh fish selection that may have been swimming hours ago. Our winning menu included mini croissants, paper thin italian salami, fresh buffalo mozzarella, two bottles of italian wine (under 3.50 for both!!!!) and of course: a bar of chocolate and another jar of nutella.

We had a great night in! The owner of the hotel was nice enough to give us a few classy plastic cups to drink our fine wine out of. We spent hours drinking, eating, laughing and eventually having our own dance party with iTunes playing in the background.

Questions about traveling

In our last month of traveling, we have noticed a few things that we can't help but ask why?????

1. Why do people attempt to record on video their whole vacation? 

Do they honestly think they will go back and watch it all? Or worse, show it to everyone they know? And how about the guy we saw videotaping his gondola ride in Venice? Did he not know he missed his whole ride trying to catch it all on film?

2. Why do certain people get photographed in front of EVERY statue they come across? 

Are they that narcissistic? Do they need proof down the road they actually saw it? We have followed groups around museums and churches that stop in front of anything of importance and each take turns getting a picture of them with it.

3. Can someone come up with a standard of toilet in the world? 

We've been in 8 countries and seen probably a dozen styles of toilets, each getting weirder than the previous one. They range from a pull cord to flush hanging from the ceiling, to being a hole on the floor. Along this line, showers are just as odd.

4. Why do people take photos with a cell phone? 

Its one thing if you take a picture to send someone right away, but once again, we've followed people taking all their pictures with their phone.

5. Who is watching Australia and Asia? 

To be truthful, its really cool that their cultures are into encouraging traveling like they do, but we often wonder if there's anyone left in these areas.

6. When did they start making washing machines that require a masters degree in engineering to figure out? 

This mostly applies to the ones in England that are a combo washer/drier in one. Call us dumb, but we had better luck figuring out the ones in foreign languages.

7. When did we miss the line that was handing out free SLR cameras? 

We walk around nervous enough with our little canon point and shoots that we'll be mugged or lose them. These people are everywhere with giant lenses that cost more than our entire trip.

8. Can they pick a language in Belgium? 

French or Dutch... you can't have both!!!


9. Who is responsible for the red hair coloring in Europe? 

We've mostly noticed this on women over the age of about 45, but none of them are even close to being red. They are an ungodly color not found in nature. We even have a game going to see who can count the most bad red hair dye jobs in a day.

10. Why can Europeans make a potato chip with 3, yes 3, ingredients, and it takes US companies about 20?

Venice, Italy-Here a church, there a church, everywhere a church-church

We were awoken by the runner of the hostel who we have dubbed "christmas eve" (of avenue Q fame for those not in the know) at about 9:15 am to her basically telling us we had to go eat breakfast. We had planned on sleeping in a bit, but maybe a bit of food isn't such a bad idea. We weren't really sure where to go in this maze of rooms, last night she said something we thought was downstairs, but Heather wasn't too excited about eating with the spider-webs, but as it turns out, it was upstairs. Walking through the hostel we wondered what lotto we lost getting the "room" behind the curtain, when there were 3 very large double bed rooms on our floor, all set up nice with furniture. After a bowl of corn-flakes, we went back down to shower and get ready for the day.

We really had no particular sights to see or places to go, so we just set out in a random direction to see what we come upon. We should note that walking around Venice you begin to feel like a rat in a maze looking for the cheese. There are a million streets and back alleyways to get lost on. About every other couple we saw was stopped, looking at their map. They say locals get lost here too, which we can easily believe.

Venice 1, Heather & Charlie 0.

After walking for an hour or so and passing many churches and crossing many bridges, we found a little square in front of a church and got our first Italian gelatto. We noticed there was a man behind the counter making it, to which Heather said " I like that man." We sat on a bench in front of the church and enjoyed it, looking at the map deciding where to wander. We thought we should head towards San Marco as it is the biggest tourist draw in the city with lots to see. We must have walked over an hour, making a few wrong turns on the way and consulting the map many times, we finally found it. San Marco consists of the basilica of San Marco, the old mayors home which is now a museum, a watchtower, and many shops along the huge sea front area. We thought we'd wander a bit along the shore and find some lunch before seeing the sights. We walked along the shore for quite a while checking out all the menus of the restaurants. Many restaurants in Italy charge extra for table service, usually 10% to 15% and sometimes a cover of 1 or 2 euros per person. As you can about imagine the places on the shore of Venice were quite expensive, so we thought we'd be best finding a place off a side alleyway which are usually much cheaper and many don't charge a cover or service charge. Walking up the shore we came upon a large yacht that had to be close to 150 feet long, and a bit up the dock, a sailboat even larger. We couldn't begin to imagine what they cost. We crossed over the Bridge of Sighs, which we thought had some sort of romantic story behind its name, but it turns out it was along the path to the old prison, and the prisoners were the ones doing the sighing as they crossed it many years ago.

We wandered back off the shore a bit and found a small cafe to eat lunch at. Heather got tortolini with procuetto and Charlie got a cheese pizza. Heather had a glass of wine with hers, while Charlie found a new flavor of fanta he likes, lime. After enjoying lunch, we headed back towards the square outside San Marco's basilica. We tried getting in, but were turned away at the door because we had a backpack, so Heather decided to walk along the shops while Charlie took a peek inside. It turned out to be rather disappointing inside, but very beautiful. There were no pictures allowed to be taken inside, but they basically had a roped off path through the church you could walk on. If you wanted to go up to the 2nd level to get a view outside it was an outrageous 4 euros, and to see the treasury room it was another 2 euros. The entire church ceiling was done in a beautiful gold mosaic, and was probably one of the more beautiful churches we've been to, but the cost to go upstairs and the quick path the shuffled everyone through kind of soured the experience. We are more used to being able wander around and take our time touring churches everywhere else in Europe.

After a bit we thought we'd head back to the hostel to clean up a bit and plan out our evening. We did get lost again and ended up on the complete wrong side of one of the islands than we thought, so out came the map and we headed towards the Rialto bridge, the biggest and main bridge across the grand canal. The street was lined with shops and markets, and also many black market dealings of handbags and sunglasses. They had many high-end name bags and glasses they were trying to sell to all the tourists, and would drop from 35 to 15 euros in an instant on the price of what should be a many hundred dollar bag. We still aren't sure if they were all real or stolen or made from the scraps at the factory. Whatever the story, they would have them all spread on the ground on a sheet, with someone on lookout for the police, and when they came walking by, they would gather the bags and run down the street till the police passed, and then found a new place to set up shop. Charlie may be looking for some black market sunglasses in Milan since he lost his in London. Heather just tried to stay away from the hand bags in general.

After a 2 hour walk, we finally found the hostel. We checked email and cleaned up a bit before heading back out in search of dinner. We took a new direction in hopes of finding something new, but we settled on a small cafe again where this time Heather ordered a pizza, and Charlie got a seafood risotto. We dined over a bottle of wine enjoying our final night in beautiful Venice. Heather ordered up an after dinner drink called Lemoncello, and it came in 2 rather large shot glasses rather than small ones as she's had before. We sat for a while and ate a bowl of nuts and a plate of chips that the server thought we needed to snack on while we relaxed.

On the way back to the hostel, we came upon the place we ate last night, with the same piano player playing again tonight, so we stopped by for a glass of wine. We listened to a few songs and started making our way back. On the corner where we had to turn there was a large crowd gathered, so we stopped to see what was going on. Turns out there was a band playing, and they were really quite good, hence the crowd. They even had someone selling their cd as they played. We stayed for a few songs before heading in to call it a night, we have plans to get up early before we get shooed into the breakfast room so we can catch our 9am train to Milan.

Innsbruck, Austria to Venice, Italy

Sunday, September 28

We switched bunks last night mostly to share the burden of the bad one. We think the pillow may be full of wood-chips, even folded over 3 times it felt terrible. We were not sure of the check out time but house keeping came knocking on the door to shoe us out rather rudely. Heather still had her hair in a towel and neither of us were dressed but we made in out in under 10 minutes before we got another slap on the wrist.

The walk to the train station was all down hill, woo hoo. Charlie said many times he'd love to live in a mountain town like Innsbruck. Innsbruck hosted the 1964 and 1976 Olympics, taking it from a very small town to a thriving city. The waters here were the same bright turquoise as in Switzerland. We made a stop at the laundry-mat to check our email (being the ONLY free wi-fi we could find in town). Getting an other 10 cent gelatto was on both of our minds but we decided a lunch might be a better choice.

The train ride from Innsbruck to Venice was beautiful (like they all are). We passed under 2-3 mountain tunnels that kept us in the dark for several minutes. This train was all cabins, three seats on each side that faced each other. Everyone was quite until the cougher got on. We hope we didn't catch anything from him.

When the train got close to Venice we got out of our seats and watched out the window in the hall. It looked like a city floating in the middle of the sea.

First order of business after getting off the train was to find our hostel, actually it's called "Francesca's Bed and Breakfast"... but stay tuned for more. The walk was very nice, almost too much to take in. We had been in two canal cities before this: Bruges and Amsterdam, but nothing like this. No cars on the streets, not even bicycles just tons of people walking and pushing their way along. Our directions were not the best so we got lost once, an older italian woman who Heather deemed "Sofia Petrillo" from the Golden Girls gave us a very very long winded directions in Italian... we just kept nodding like we had any idea what she was saying no matter how loud she spoke. A few more turns and we found the place... urrr maybe!?

The ground floor was exposed brick, and not the pretty kind... dirty with cement steps that were uneven with 100s of years of smoothing down from shoes. We made our way upstairs and found Francesca to be a married asian couple. Hmm that's sort of different. Our room if you can call it that, was merely a hall way between rooms with a curtain we could pull around the bunk bed. We thought, oh well they must all be little icky rooms like this.... oh no the next morning we learned different. But the place did have a computer to use for internet but no wi fi.

Our first attempt at exploring Venice was kept pretty close to where we stayed. Venice is unlike any city we'd been to, getting lost was unavoidable. Venice is uncommonly romantic so just strolling down the streets, and up and down canal bridges was really amazing. It was nearly dark already so not a great time to get pictures. Typical Venetian food consists of sardines, vinegar and onions... we will try to avoid that. We had dinner in a open square with an italian man playing piano (mostly American love song covers). Our first meal in Italy!! Heather had gnocchi with gorgonzola and Charlie had an artichoke pizza. We toasted our first meal with italian wine and enjoyed every last bit. One tiny fact about pizza in Europe is it's never cut, you just eat it with a fork and knife.

Yes the traditional gondola guys were around but the rides are so expensive we thought we better think about it a little more... besides it's still a romantic city.

Off to bed at our crazy little place.

Innsbruck, Austria-Lazy Day in the Mountains

Saturday, September 27

Being 2 very wore out travelers, we took full advantage of being able to sleep in. After waking a bit after 10, we lazily took showers and dressed ourselves for the day. First on the agenda was laundry, as it had been about 4 days again. We made the 10 minute stroll down the hill and found the Laundromat. We did our famous, stuff all of our clothes into one load trick we've mastered on this trip, and made our way up the road to the supermarket in hopes of finding lunch.

Our purchases included some chocolates (Heather), a bottle of Fanta, bread, a jar of nutella, and some bananas in hopes they would help our achy muscles. Heather also got some much needed hair products. We enjoyed our picnic lunch in the park, and found that nutella and bananas are one of the greatest combinations on Earth. They are especially yummy in sandwich form. Neither of us are sure if we'll ever go back to normal peanut butter again, although nutella is much cheaper here in Europe than in the states. After about 30 minutes we headed back to switch our clothes to the drier, and just rested on the comfy couch until they were dry. Making the trek back up the hill carrying groceries and 2 bags of laundry made us kind of tired, so we did the smart thing and napped for about 45 minutes after we got back. I know, we've had a pretty rough day so far.

About 3pm we thought we'd better get out and see some of this beautiful town. We walked back down the hill and crossed yet another bright turquoise colored river. There was a cute puppy running along side of us before crossing who was chasing a blowing leaf, and when he tried to grab it his back legs swung too far out and he fell over, it was really cute and funny. We stopped for a moment on the bridge to take some pictures and take in the beauty of the mountains. We decided we'd wander town to try and find some internet, which we should say is quite hard to find the past few days here in Austria. After asking around a bit, we were told to go to another Laundromat that had pay internet. Along the way Heather found the cheapest gelato yet, 10 cents!!! We were sure the guy read his sign wrong, we thought it was a 7 instead of a 1, but who are we to argue! We'll try again tomorrow for sure.

After getting to the Laundromat, we scammed some free wi-fi instead of paying, in the words of Borat, "great success!!" We caught up on our blog, and did some emails over the next half hour. Beings it was almost 5pm, we thought we'd better find some dinner. We wandered past a chinese restaurant, something both of us have been craving for weeks, but found they didn't open til 530, so we wandered up the street a bit to kill time before they opened.

We were back promptly at 5:30 at took a seat at a booth near the window overlooking a street on the old part of town. We should add this restaurant was on the 2nd floor, like many restaurants are here in Austria. We ordered some wonton soup, chicken with cashews and noodles with chicken. We took our time and ate family style, savoring every bite of food we'd been missing for so long. We took our time eating and enjoying everything, and sat in there for about 2 hours. It was nice to take time to enjoy a nice long meal for a change.

After eating we walked around a street in the old part of town, doing some window shopping, and enjoying a very pleasant evening. We walked past one of Europes big, old cathedrals, and might check it out tomorrow if we get a chance before leaving. We made our way back to the hostel to relax for the evening and try to get rid of our worn out feeling, and to maybe put our clean laundry back in our backpacks.