A Tale of Two Cities – Venice and Verona

Venice was always on the agenda for this trip, we just didn’t know when it would happen.  I had always wanted to go on a real gondola ride and where else would you do this but Venice?!

In some ways though Venice was disappointing.  I don’t know what it was like years ago but the centre of Venice seems to be a caricature of itself….nothing here but Italian restaurants (every single one with an identical menu so you really don’t even need to choose between them), hundreds of shops and stalls selling exactly the same merchandise and hundreds of Gondolas that were all exactly the same price!  Then of course there were the Indian and Nigerian street sellers that we found in Rome.  They are less aggressive in Venice but still sell the same fakes and cheap trinkets and still disappear in a flash as soon as Police are in sight!

Walking through residential Venice was lovely though! The narrow lanes where most houses had window boxes filled with flowers and washing flapping on lines strung from windows.  The small canals with steps and gates that showed glimpses of sunlit courtyards. 

The waterbus system here is brilliant as well.  We bought a 36 hour pass that allowed us unlimited travel on all buses, waterbuses and trams and we definitely got our moneys worth!

Our first trip was out to Murano and it was very nice.  The boats are large with lots of seating and you can barely feel that you are on the water as they are so smooth.  Even when we had to stand we didn’t need to hold on at all.  Murano island is dedicated to glass and our first glass blowing demonstration blew us away!  If only it went for a little longer but it seemed that the demo was to draw us in only to have us shuttled straight into the shop after a few minutes.

The streets are lined with shop after shop, most selling the same thing as the last but we did find a couple of exceptions and these were the ones we bought from.  We were also on a mission to find a ring to replace one a friend had bought here a few years ago that had broken and when we found an onsite glassblower that could make one in less than 40 minutes we were pretty happy.  It’s not the same as her original one but it’s definitely one of a kind!

From Murano we went to Burano, one of the most beautiful little islands we have ever seen!  Every house was painted a different colour, some so bright we needed to wear sunnies!  It looked so cheerful and clean and bright!

The last place we visited was San Marco, a very old part of Venice judging by the amazing architecture we saw there.

We did consider going to Lido but decided that it might be better to visit in Summer as it is basically just a beach.

The next morning the first thing on our list was to do that Gondola ride!  Straight after breakfast we jumped on the first bus and headed into the centre of Venice.  We found a Gondolier that we liked (and that offered us a better price rather than let us walk away) and set off :)  The Gondola's here are beautiful!  Glossy black lacquer, padded seats, brocade pillows, gold ornamental decorations, tasselled footstools....they really set the mood.  The Gondoliers also wear the striped shirts and boater hats like in the old days and our Gondolier even whistled and sang when he wasn't explaining the sights as he poled us down the canals :)

I did have a couple of freaked out moments when the wash from a larger boat would make us rock but all in all it was a relaxing trip and I enjoyed it very much :)

We actually had no idea where we would be going after Venice, all we knew was we needed to be in Munich to catch our plane on April 26^th which was about a week away.  I opened up my map of Europe and started tracing a path from Venice to Munich and saw Verona, the town where Romeo and Juliet was set and our next destination was decided :)

We did a bit of research and could see that Verona was quite small and didn’t have a lot of attractions so we decided that one night would be enough there.  Verona is only about an hour from Venice so it was nice and easy.  Late breakfast, check out and catch the first train out after that and arrive in Verona in time for lunch :)

And that’s exactly what we did!

After lunch we walked to the Verona Old Town and walked straight into an amazing food market!  Cannoli, doughnuts, waffles topped with custard, hundreds of cheeses, salamis, arancini, freshly baked breads…..for the first time ever I regretted stopping for lunch!  We made a mental note to stop by there for dinner though!

First stop in Verona was the Arena, a mini colosseum that has been converted into an open air theatre!  We then went and wandered the streets looking for Juliets Tomb….now I have to ask, why is there a tomb for an imaginary character??  But we found it along with Juliets House and the famous balcony.  They really take the story seriously here in Verona!!

We then tried to find Romeo’s house but the directions on the map were not very good.  It did amuse us to see a few other couples, wandering the same streets as us with the same map…maybe we should have joined forces and had a better chance of finding it!  At this point we could have used the very misunderstood “Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo” if I hadn’t known it didn’t mean “where art thou” rather than “why art thou” but we simply gave up and moved on to the Lamberti Tower (Torre Lamberti) - completed in 1463, this is the tallest of Verona's towers.  Nathan keeps saying I was very brave going up there and taking photo’s but I was on the edge of panic and blubbering the whole time so I really didn’t feel brave!

On to the beautiful Giardino Giusti (Giusti Gardens) and we had completed all of the sightseeing that we wanted to do in Verona!

Of course there were various churches, squares and castles that we also visited but these were more ‘along the way’ than planned.

Going back to our hotel via the food markets we grabbed a quick dinner and sat in the park adjacent to the markets and watched the beautiful fountain as we ate then leisurely strolled back to our hotel to decide where we would go the next day!

This is the latest we have ever left our planning….8pm and we have no idea where to go next, no hotel reservation...nothing!

So!  Finger back on the map and I come to a town on the border of Austria and Germany (Bavaria) called Mittenwald.  It looks small and quaint and I assume it has Austrian food!  Now after a week of starving in Italy and feeling like I was on the edge of getting scurvy due to a severe lack of fruit and vegetables, I was really excited to be going somewhere that would serve real food!

Next step is find a hotel but strangely the closest hotel in 8km away in a place called Garmisch-Partenkirchen…so we decide to go there instead :)