Venice - city of love

We woke in Athens port about 6am, ready to scoff down breakfast and disembark. We had been told our bags would be waiting for us in port. It was a sad morning, the last with our Contiki friends apart from Mai and Clinton whom we would be meeting in Venice.
We had a 11am flight to catch from Athens airport and it was a 40 minute trip from the port. By the time we had picked up our bags and said our goodbyes, it was about 7.30.
We shared a taxi with Mai and Clinton, our bags overflowing from the taxi’s boot and tied down by our at first gruff driver.
He had bargained hard for our fare, trying to stiff us for 90 euro. We had been told not to pay more than 35 or 40 and managed only to get him down to 50, with an extra 10 if we liked the way he drove.
Squished in, we braced ourselves for some classic Greek driving as our taxi driver became tour guide.
The old Athens airport had been right in the centre of the city but had been moved about eight years ago to help cut pollution. Air pollution had been damaging the Acropolis. Consequently, the new airport was now three days by telephone from the city.
The guy was a crack up.
“Do you know that California is a Greek word,” he asked, having learned Mai and Clinton were from the sunshine state in the US.
“Cali comes from the Greek word for good, which comes from the …”
If anyone has seen My Big Fat Greek Wedding, he was exactly like the father in it. Mai and I couldn’t help but laugh.
We arrived at the airport just before 9am and were surprised to find check in for our flight hadn’t opened. We were flying Tarom Airlines, a Romanian airline, to Venice via Bucharest.
Mai and Clinton weren’t flying out until 2pm.
But our timing seemed near perfect. Check in opened within minutes of us lining up and we were one of the first put through.
After arranging a place and time to meet the Californians in Venice, Sam and I passed through passport control and security without a hiccup and waited for our flight to board.
The airport had free wifi and I happily chatted away with various people on Facebook until the gate opened.
Everything was going too easily and once again I think I jinxed us by mentioning this as we passed through the gate and onto the plane.
We had managed to nab the emergency exit seats, scoring some extra legroom and a fellow Aussie in the seat next to us to boot.
He had also been travelling for about two months and had been all over Europe - running with the bulls in Spain, partying in Mykonos and Croatia and was now heading to Budapest in Hungary.
He was fun to chat with but his fixation on the Romanian hostesses being vampires quickly grew old.
The flight was short and soon we landed in Bucharest.
What should have been a short walk through the transfers area to our next gate was held up by a stupid-looking security guard who insisted no one could pass in transit to meet their next flight until “the company” arrived.
Who the company was and why we had to wait he could not explain. Some people had connecting flights to meet within the hour while Sam and I at least at the luxury of a couple of hours.
Finally, after about half an hour of waiting and more and more confused people joining the rabble, a nasty looking woman from Tarom Airlines showed us.
She was the reason we hadn’t been allowed to pass through security as she had to check our boarding passes. The whole thing was ridiculous.
However, for the poor guy who had been on the phone telling whomever that he wasn’t going to make it because he was going to miss his flight, he still couldn’t go anywhere, as he was waiting on British Airways.
After that hiccup it was smooth sailing and Sam and I found a power outlet near our gate and got typing.
Another short flight, accompanied by the exact same food we had had on the flight to Bucharest and we landed in Venice about 4pm.
We were back in Italy and I was pleased because the Greek language had largely bypassed me.
We bought tickets for the water bus direct to San Marco which turned out to be expensive but probably better in the long run. The cheaper tickets were all stops and according to Mai and Clinton who caught one later that afternoon took about an hour and a half.
Ours took about half an hour and bar one other couple, we were the only ones on it. This was great because it meant as we sailed in, we had the run of the boat to take photos.
Venice is a sight to see. Pictures do not do it justice.
What surprised me was how choppy and rough the water was, at least in the Grand Canal and the lagoon.
However, anxiety gnawed at me.
We had booked our accommodation while in Athens and printed off a map that came with our confirmation in Patmos. The printing wasn’t fantastic and everyone on every website had warned - you will get lost in Venice.
I didn’t mind the idea of that so much - without my huge and heavy backpack. As it was, the longer Sam and I wore those things, the crankier we got.
Off the boat and onto the dock, we virtually faced San Marco Piazza, the most famous of Venice’s sights.
It was about 6pm and not nearly as busy as I imagined it must be during the middle of the day and Sam and I set off in the direction our hotel was in.
The place was so amazing to look at, we almost didn’t notice when we arrived at the bridge near where our hotel was supposed to be. This was about all we had managed to make of the map - a general location We had no idea what the hotel looked like and scanning our surrounds we couldn’t see it. We finally asked a man selling artwork on the bridge if he knew where it was and he pointed in the direction of a porch by the canal.
Within 30 seconds we had found our hotel, just 20 metres from a canal.
The lovely hotel owner, Alberto, checked us in, gave us a map of the city and offered to point out to us anything we might need.
Up another flight of stairs and we were in our room, spacey with a beautiful bathroom.
We also asked Alberto if we could stay an extra two nights, having decided once we saw the place that we couldn’t be bothered moving to our other digs for the last two nights. That hostel was in an entirely different district of Venice and would be a bitch to get to.
It didn’t take long before we were out and exploring and within minutes we were at the Rialto Bridge, the most famous of all Venice’s bridges, built in the 1500s.
It is one of only four bridges that span the Grand Canal.
Photos were in order but by this time we were both hungry and we found a little out of the way restaurant on the way back to our hotel to have dinner.
Squid ink spaghetti and scaloppine with marsala sauce and some red wine to wash it down and we were pretty happy little travellers.
It had been a long day that had started very early and it was to bed for us.
Alysia (August 30)

Venice Day Two
Our first day in Venice was spent very romantically doing washing. Contiki partying and Greek isle sailing had taken its toll on our wardrobes and we were in desperate need of clean clothes. Even my mammoth supply of underwear had run low.
Alberto pointed us in the direction of a coin laundry and we managed to negotiate the maze of streets without any trouble to find it.
The man working there took our money with pleasure - our most expensive laundry yet at six euro a load plus four for drying. With two loads - one of colours and one of whites - it added up.
We left the machines to do their thing and wandered around in the vicinity of the laundry, taking a few snaps as we went.
We didn't want to loiter too far in case we got lost and the loads were finished within 40 minutes, which might account for some items not being quite clean.
But we didn't want to waste too much time on chores and I was keen to explore this beautiful city.
We dumped the laundry and made for the main square, after buying a guide book from a nearby vendor.
In the middle of San Marco we had a fine vantage point for the basilica, the palace of the doges, the clock tower and the bell tower.
We referred to our guide book when necessary but on the whole we didn't recognise the names of any of the architects or artists whose work we were admiring so it was a little pointless.
We snapped away like hundreds of others around us and head towards the water.
This was where we had got off the water boat the afternoon before and we set off in a direction we thought would bring us back around to the Grand Canal at some point, so we wouldn't get too lost.
This was pretty much how we spent the afternoon - wandering around, taking photos of buildings, canals, boats. The place is just a delight to be in.
We grabbed a quick pizza for lunch and remarked on the lack of seating in the city, forcing tourists to sit on the steps of bridges and the sides of one of the 200-odd churches.
Sam still wasn't feeling the best and we headed back to the hotel in mid afternoon.
That evening we met Mai and Clinton for dinner. They had this great little guide book that had a list of restaurants they wanted to check out.
We ended up at a little place called alla Madonna or something like that that specialised in seafood.
We hadn't given it much thought before getting there, but it made sense that Venice would have great seafood.
We ordered wine and shared a cold seafood appetiser between the four of us.
For mains there was fried calamari, grilled prawns, whole red mullet and squid in ink sauce and polenta.
It was all good and we were glad we had got to the restaurant early as it filled up quickly.
We headed back to Mai and Clinton's five-star hotel to admire the view from the terrace below.
It overlooked the Grand Canal and the church and other sights Sam and I had walked to that day. It was beautiful.
More wine was consumed before Sam and I bid farewell and headed back to our own modest digs.
As we passed through San Marco, we had the luxury of being two of less than a dozen people in the piazza that is usually crowded with thousands of tourists.
Venice doesn't have much of a nightlife and we had read that a visit to the Piazza after dark was well worth it.
The buildings were lit beautifully and it was lovely standing in the cool night air admiring it without the hordes.
Alysia (August 31)

Venice Day Three
The third day passed much in the same way as the one before, minus the washing. Sam and I set off after breakfast in the hotel for a wander, but in the opposite direction.
We were determined to get lost this day which we had found difficult yesterday.
Yet everything we had read about Venice told us we would get lost.
We walked over the Rialto Bridge and found the locals fresh produce and seafood market. The restaurant we had eaten at the night before had been very near here so we were glad to know the produce was fresh.
Beyond the markets and we kept walking, turning around only when we found a dead end at a canal with no bridge.
This happened at one point opposite Venice's Casino, a very posh affair set on the Grand Canal.
We contemplated getting the water bus ... somewhere ... but didn;t really know where to go. We talked about going to Murano, where the famous Murano glass is blown into amazing objects and jewellery but decided against it as there was such an abundance on the main island anyway and we weren't going to buy any.
As we walked back toward the hotel, we stopped to admire plenty of wine bottle stoppers, with decorative glass on top but knew that for the price they weren't the real deal anyway.
We're quite picky with what we buy at the moment because we are so conscious of the weight of our bags, especially as we have several more flights before we go home.
At the moment the plan is to head from Venice into Slovenia, then Ausria, dart into Switzerland for a few days and make our way up to Paris.
The idea of spending a lot of time in France is becoming less appealing to us, though we can't really say why.
We had originally thought we would go from Venice to Verona to see Juliet's Balcony, and who knows, we still might.
Today was also exciting because it was the day we knew Clinton was going to propose to Mai on a gondola. He had spilled the beans to us in Athens and while she knew they were going on a gondola, she had no idea what was in store.
We thought about it often as we wouldn't meet up with them until tomorrow, when we were going to the beach at Lido.
In the afternoon, we started researching where we might go after Venice, given we only had one more day here.
Typing in random nearby countries into Google, we found a tour company that ran a tour starting in Croatia and ending in Prague.
The idea had appeal and the price was right.
There was also another tour, an eight-day sailing around Croatia but the dates didn't work for us, even though it sounded amazing.
We liked the idea and decided that from Prague we could head west as planned to Paris.
Dinner was a truly typical Sam and Alysia affair. Anyone who has had lunch with us in Tamworth knows how long it can take us to work out what we want to eat. This was proving to be one of those nights. So far we had been splashing out probably more than we should have been on food and we really needed to cut back. Our excuse always seemed to be "but when will we ever be in Florence/Pisa/Rome/Sorrento again".
After walking around for almost two hours looking for somewhere to eat, we finally stopped at a small out of the way restaurant somewhere near the Rialto. The place was pretty much empty and we decided, unsurprisingly, to splash out "because we were in Venice".
I had the clam spaghetti - which was sooo good - while Sam had gnocchi in fish sauce, that was soooo yummy.
Main was grilled prawns for me - disappointing - and Sam had mixed fried seafood.
It was another expensive dinner but so tasty.
Alysia (September 1)

Venice Day Four
Our last day in Venice we met up with Mai and Clinton at 10 to catch a boat to Lido, the island between the sea and the main island of Venice.
As discussed, we had our best surprised faces on for when Mai and Clinton told us their news, unsure whether or not Clinton would tell Mai we had already known.
"we're engaged!" Mai blurted.
"Congratulations!"
She was so excited and hadn't been able to tell her family or anyone. There was handshaking and hugs and we set off for the boat to Lido while Mai filled me in on the proposal.
A gondola, champagne and an opera singer - how romantic! Clinton had planned it months ago and Mai had had no idea what he was up to.
We bought out tickets to Lido, but couldn't work out where to validate them. Italy has this bizarre thing where you buy tickets then you have to validate them before you use them.
As the boat pulled into the dock, I spied a box that looked right and raced off to get my ticket stamped. The others were not so quick and I was first back to the boat. Without thinking I jumped on, thinking the others would be able to jump on before it left. But in Venice the boats don't wait for anybody and it pulled out, with the others still on the dock.
I waved goodbye and told them I would meet them there.
The next stop was only a five minute trip up the canal and I decided to hop off there and catch them on the next one, rather than wait like a Nigel at Lido.
Reunited on the next boat, it was maybe a 20-minute trip to Lido. It looked very different to Venice proper and more like a beach town you might find in Australia.
We walked up the main drag until we were on the other side of the island. It was a 10-minute walk, that's how narrow the island is, although it is rather long.
Here was the free beach, with beach chairs and umbrella which you of course paid for the privilege of using.
The sand of was soft but grey in colour and the water as flat as the Bay. It was kind of funny when Mai and Clinton said it looked "rough".
We spent several hours lying in the sun, people watching and ignoring the sarong vendors walking the beach.
Pizza and beer for lunch - this was becoming a bad habit - and Sam and I decided to head back to the main island to do some more research and book the tour we had found the day before to Prague. Mai and Clinton said they were going to go to Murano but told us later they ended up coming back too.
Back in the hotel and back online, we found another tour with the same company that went from Split in Croatia to Istanbul via Bosnia, Serbia and Bulgaria. It was only a six-day tour which would give us five days in Istanbul. Both Sam and I had said after our visit to Kusadasi that we would have loved to go to Istanbul. The only thing would be getting from there to Paris.
And wouldn't you know it, there were cheap flights from Istanbul to Paris on the day we wanted.
We were sold on the idea. But what to do in the meantime. We had to get to Croatia anyhow to start this tour, what would we do there?
The eight-day sailing tour resurfaced and we liked the sound of it even more. BUt could we afford it?
We were just over 40 days in and had 40-plus days left.
The two tours would cost us the equivalent of $3000 Australian for 14 days. It was better value than the Contiki tours, but the digs wouldn't be four-star either.
We decided to do it and started the booking process. We would go to Austria for the week in between, head down to Split, then start the tours.
But somewhere in the booking process, the net crashed and we couldn't finish the booking.
We weren't too worried, we would fix it up in Austria.
Austria, now that was exciting. Sam had been reading up on it and I knew virtually nothing about this place he wanted to go to called Innsbruck. Apparently, the scenery was really pretty and we could catch the train there.
So we booked accommodation in Innsbruck at the Ibis on Wotif. We knew where we were headed now we just had to get there.
You can't book train tickets online in Italy so we would just have to wing it when we got to the station in the morning and hope it wasn't too expensive.
That night, we met Mai and Clinton again for our final dinner.
We bought a bottle of champagne on the way to their hotel to celebrate their engagement and admired their new room. The air conditioning unit had started leaking into the wall and from the ceiling and they had been moved to a balcony room overlooking the Grand Canal.
The view was sensational.
The annual gondola races on each September were on in three days' time and some sort of official blessing ceremony was taking place at the church opposite their hotel - of which we had a perfect view from their balcony.
We drank the champagne, took photos and then headed out to dinner - another place they had read about in that guide book of theirs.
This one was more out of the way and it took more than a bit of wandering to find it.
It took us past the Bridge of Sighs, one of the most famous of Venice's bridges and we have to say the most disappointing. Because of some sort of restoration work, the entire thing is covered in and surrounded by advertising billboards. It makes the whole thing look horribly tacky and the bridge itself is completely lost in it.
Dinner was very much not a toursity place, given the entire menu was in Italian and the waiters looked like if we asked for one in English they would kick us out. Some guesswork ensued and a few casual questions to the waiter to determine what some dishes were before we made our order.
The waiter dismissed our wine order and chose for us, as he did when our second courses arrived.
It was more seafood of course and it was fantastic.
We stopped for a late night expresso on the way back to Mai and Clinton's hotel, where we left them. Sam and I were going to go on a gondola ride.
It was close to 11pm and the cost more than if we had gone during the day, but ti was worth it. I hadn't heard the city so quiet since we had arrived. The water in the canals was still and there was so little other traffic. There was also no tourists snapping pictures as we passed under the bridge they were standing on.
Mai had said that as Clinton proposed, they had passed under a very busy bridge and everyone watching had clapped.
The ride lasted about 40 minutes and our gondolier pointed out buildings of interest on the way.
It was the perfect way to cap off our time in Venezia.
Alysia (September 2)