We got to Venice from Florence in about 2 hours and 40 minutes. Not too bad. It was a nice sunny day and we arrived around 1pm or so.
Here we are!
Our hotel was a 5 minute walk from the train station which was totally key. (Sometimes you never know if the area around the train stations will be sketchy, but in Venice, the area is okay....Paris is another story.) Anyway, we got to our hotel which was kind of pricy for what you got; however, that is how Venice is in general. Cool place to see, but expensive food and accommodations.
Venetian traffic jam
Well, we were out and walking around by 2pm. We did lots of window shopping and weaved all around the city, over the small bridges and canals. Venice is known for it's Venetian glass which is very colorful and elaborate, and there are lots of glass shops. Also, there are tons of places that sell masks, similar to what one would wear at Mardi Gras. The masks are worn for the Carnival of Venice, and the carnival starts two weeks before Ash Wednesday and ends on Fat Tuesday.
Hellooooo...anyone in there?
Anyway, the last time Aggie and I were in Venice, we were with our good friends, Steph and Pete. We had left thinking Venice was just kind of average. This time, however, we were very pleasantly surprised with how nice it was...we loved it! Granted, it wasn't too hot yet; we have heard that in the summer it's extremely warm and smelly.
We continued to wander around, saw St. Mark's square, got pooped on (bird), hung out...all in all, good times! We were all starving around 3-4pm and of course, almost all restaurants were closed and not opening until 6pm. Well, we finaly found a pizzaria that was open and took seats right in the front window which was great for people watching. Our server was really nice too and we even got tasty lemon shots at the end of our meal!
After the feeding
The rest of the evening was low key as we just had some gellati and chilled. The next day we got up and grabbed coffee and some crossiants at a local shop near the hotel. Then we got a few groceries for our lunch on the train and we caught the 10:52am train to Lake Como. From Como, we were going to then take a bus to the small town of Belliago. This adventure turned out to be a lot longer that we had planned....
The train from Venice to Como was 4 hrs. It was easy enough as we were able to play cards, eat, read, etc. It was prefect. When we arrived in Como we had to wait almost an hour for the local bus that would take us (and about 20 other people) to Belliago. That was not perfect. Once the bus arrived, we all piled on. Everyone fit but luggage was all over the place. Then, the bus continued to stop thoughout the city of Como and on it's way to Belliago letting locals and others on. Thank goodness we had seats is all I have to say! Besides being so crowded, the bus basically winds its way along the edge of a cliff. It's not a good sign when the bus driver has to blow his horn almost every 30 seconds as the bus goes around a bend to ensure no other cars are coming, all the while as you are peering down over the cliff of certain death. It was blowing my mind! Needless to say, we were happy when we finally got to Belliago.
Of course, our bus passed our hotel right before we got to the town of Belliago. We rode for a few more minutes and when the bus stopped, we got off, thinking we were going to have to drag our bags back to the hotel that was about a 10 minutes walk back on the main road, all uphill. Plus it had just started to rain and turned really chilly. This was not a desirable situation. There was a mini "choo choo" train (of course there was! think King's Island tour through Smurf-ville) that was in the same lot the bus stopped in. I jokingly said to Ferd, "Go see if that yay-hoo goes to Hotel Silvio"...not thinking he would. Well, devil be damned, he did and our hotel was the last stop! The train was taking off in 5 minutes so we jumped on and enjoyed the short ride around the town and then to our hotel.
Our hotel transport
The hotel was awesome! We all got settled into our rooms and made dinner reservations for that evening at the hotel restaurant. We then went into town to walk around for a few hours. Dinner that night was delicious and the view wasn't too shabby. The dinning room was all glass and the view was of the lake which looked amazing at night.
Not a bad view (from the hotel)
The next day we woke up, had breakfast and then headed into town again. We strolled around and checked out all the shops, bought a few things, relaxed. This was a place we could have stayed at for anoher evening. There wasn't a ton to do which was great! All we wanted to do was end the vacation relaxed and chilled which we did.
Chillin with some Bellagio microbrews
We caught the scary bus back to the main town of Como later that day and caught the 3:07pm train back to Zurich that Saturday afternoon. Our train arrived back in Zurich around 7pm, and we were happy to be back in our apartment. The Italian adventure was a success, and we were happy to celebrate that right on our own couch.
The next morning (on Sunday) Fred and I went for a jog. Then we all went to mass. After mass, we went down to the lake and had a picnic. We met up with our friends, John and Helen for a short time, then headed back to the mansion. That night we had a BBQ and just chilled.
Picnic in the park
BBQ at the house later that night
The Bills in Europe!!
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