JB's Blog

Waving good to Nice and France we boarded the Venice Express train with a full day of travel ahead of us… oh dear.  Comparing a French train to an Italian one is like comparing an award winning dentist and a guy with a hammer: they can both remove teeth but there are varying degree’s of cleanliness and pain one might think about before choosing.
Not knowing what to expect we had paid the extra Euro’s an opted for first class.  Turns out on Italian trains that baggage is more for hand luggage then suit cases.  The only place to store luggage is above your head, and now I’m glad we stayed under the 20kg limit set by our International Airplane restrictions.  A Japanese couple sharing the 6 seater-cabin didn’t dare put their luggage on the racks and instead opted to squeeze them between their legs.

For those that are keen on bringing their pooch, First class in Italy allows you to bring dogs with you;  I was wondering why there was so much hair on my seat until I found a few Germain Shepards eating some Salami a few seats down from us.  Don’t worry, you only have to pay a third of the seat price for your K9 companions.

Cara was a bit annoyed as she was looking forward to viewing the Italian country side as we power through on the train, but alas the Italian’s think dust is a protective layer and is best kept on.  So we had a view kinda similar to a cataract ridden 70 year old with Vaseline smeared on their eyes.

The people on the train though were fun to listen in on.  A bunch of Americans sitting in a nearby cabin were postively HOLLERING and were speaking to some Kiwi’s. 
I tried my best much to my amusement to speak the little Japanese I could to our cabin buddies.  Unfortunately the only thing in memory I had was Nils’ youtube videos of Jnglish speaking girls saying the rudest things. 

We changed trains in Milano to head over to Venice with the second train being a lot newer and quiter then the previous one and watched a movie on my Macbook called “The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas”.  I didn’t realise the context of the film nor the darkness of it, but i was glad I was travelling to Italy instead of Germany watching it… 

Eventually we arrived to a slightly chilly Venice and grabbed a public boat to take us near our hotel.  I didn’t realise that cars/bikes are almost non-existent here due to the lack of space and water.  Boats are the way to go, and we met some lovely Americans spending their short holidays in Europe. 

Dragging our bags around the bustling streets we shortly found our Hotel, and here’s a piccy of the reception.

Don’t worry, the room is actually pretty spacious!  The biggest room so far we’ve had in Europe.  My only complaint is the lack of elevator and three flights of small stair cases.  Poor Cara is going to have to take some more pain killers for her hips… or just drink enough until the pain goes away.

In any case… WE’RE IN VENICE WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.