Ciao Italia.

Today started out as a relaxing day of train travel to Venice. No rush in the morning as we had breakfast at our hotel and then left Salzburg in the rain to head south.  We are all looking forward to meeting our daughter in Venice the following day.

Our train to Venice was 9 minutes late getting into Rosenheim (Germany), where we had what we thought was a 17 minute timespan to change trains. Once there, we figured out the entire schedule had changed and we had a bit longer to wait. Once en route to Venice they also canceled three stops, fortunately not ours . . . apparently this train was run by the Italians.  We missed the usual German/Swiss efficiency.

The route was as beautiful, as I had anticipated. We traveled through Innsbruck; crossed the Italian border at Brenner and came through Verona. There were mountains, bright green pastures, sheep & cows grazing, Tyrolean churches, villages nestled in valleys, incredible sheer cliffs and the occasional castle in the distance. The rainy weather created some fog and beautiful cloud patterns; it also created windows streaked with dirt – not good for photos.

Incredibly, my phone was working well (even through the long tunnels), and I was surprised when it rang with a couple of calls. The biggest surprise was the automated call telling us our daughter’s USAir flight had been canceled! We had a few tense moments until we finally determined she was re-routed to Venice and would only be a little late.

Happily, we have once again outrun the rain. On arrival in Venice, we walked over the bridge from the train station to our hotel, the Hotel Carlton on the Grand Canal and settled in.  I do not care for this hotel at all, the rooms are dark and have definitely seen better days; some rooms smell of smoke, staff was not very helpful.  I selected it because of its proximity to the train station and transportation hub. Despite the convenient location and even attributing some of the chaos to the summer crowds and general Venice issues, I would not recommend it.

We ventured out to nearby Trattoria Marcianna, for a nice, simple pasta dinner. My husband and I went exploring afterwards – basically learning the neighborhood a bit, but more importantly scoping out the gelato options.