venice

ann had the idea to stop in venice ... and I was immediately suspicious. my dad rasied me to be forever weary of tourist traps and heavily-travelled paths, so the idea of going to what is essentially the Mackinac Island of Italy didn't immediately appeal to me. but it offered promise of being warmer than vienna "colder and windier than chicago in december", austria - so we headed for the city of canals and gondolas.

it looked, I kid you not, exactly like this:



and it looked like that *everywhere*.

the whole place felt like a slightly more authentic Disney backlot. you didn't even have to try to find romantic viewpoints, they were ubiquitous. as were the tourists. but they were easily overlooked, as the fantasy land-ness of venice repeatedly forced you to think, "wait, this place exists organically? this isn't some weird planned community mall facade thing in rochester hills? weird ..."



the train ride in to venice was interesting in that it was our first couchette (2nd class sleeper car) night train excursion. I've done those before, but ann hadn't and it was quite something. we had booked two beds in a four-bed compartment, and right up until 5 minutes before the train pulled away from the platform, it looked like we were going to have it all to ourselves.

and then ...

in comes a 40-something couple from who-knows-where (thankfully, not america/britain) speaking Italian and Spanish(?) or some weird hybrid they had developed. they had a lot of luggage, but were largely palatable as couchette-mates. here's ann looking really happy to see them as they climb up to their bunks ...



here's me looking out the window/cool:



coming into venice is a torturous game of delayed gratification. there's a train station labeled "venice" that isn't actually venice. then you go through this area of boring suburbia, then it changes to outskirts-of-Florida-type near-swamp, then a minute of forest ... and then ... what's this? ... we're on a bridge. and there's water below. is this a causeway? are we finally getting there? wait, there's an island! nope ... not venice. ok ... there's an island ...



nope, not venice. (at this point, I suppose due to the bridge's structural engineering - or lack thereof - the train is going about 5 miles an hour and it feels like you could crawl - backwards - at a faster pace.) then ... finally ... there it is. it must be venice. and it is beautiful.

the train station lets you out right at the grand canal. the vaporetto (aka water bus) ride looks like this:





and took us near our hotel room, which looked like this inside:



but looked like this out of our window:



yep, canal view.

thanks to the internet and ann's well-placed prodding, we ponied up the extra $15 and went with the fancy view. it was well worth it.





again, this was *out of our window*:



we walked around and saw some tourist sites:









also, the italians are not shy about their laundry:



we walked more:



took "those photos" without trying:



and saw a great sunset:





the next morning (yesterday), we headed to the train station to go to florence. instead of friendly ticket agents ready to book our short train ride, we found this:



yet another strike! in paris, it was the metro and then the airlines, in germany it was the airlines again, and now in italy it was the railroads. luckily, there was a eurostar train (sort of unaffiliated with the italian national line) heading to rome with a stop off in florence, so we booked that and got off in Firenze (the, much to ann's continued upset, Italian name for Florence).

on the train, we had panini:



In florence, we found our apartment for the week, kinda near this street:



and then made our way to the grocery store, after which ann cooked a very tasty pasta meal for us:





last night, we walked around. here's ann at the david replica placed in the statue's original location:





here's the duomo:





and here's the ponte vecchio:





to cap off the night, we got chocolate gelato from a nearby corner place. it was sehr gut. (we're still speaking german in our heads, but trying to adjust to the new language.)



we're here in Florence for a week (or hopefully a little more) now. That catches us up. More soon.