We spent our last Venice Day seeing a few sites we had missed – The Rialto Bridge and the Grand Canal beyond St. Mark’s Square. We took the Water bus, got a great outside seat and let it be our very cheap tour guide for awhile. Venice really is a beautiful and such a unique city. Loved it even more than I thought I would. It’s right up there for me!
We needed to do laundry, repack and organize for heading North on the next chapter of this great adventure! We spent nearly a month in Spain and Portugal, 11 days in Italy – including a week with Heather and Brad and now we will head north to Austria, Switzerland and Germany. It will be cooler weather and new and different sites. Jim’s paternal grandparents came from Austria and although we can’t get to the exact site (borders have changed) -we will be enjoying the history and heritage with them in mind.
Up and on the train bright and early. We left the water of Venice and then travelled through Northern Italian towns and small cities for a couple of hours. Pretty and different countryside. As we travelled we got closer and closer to the Alps, and then we started climbing.
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I expected Austria to be beautiful and I was excited about the train trip through the Alps. I thought we’d be winding our way through snow capped peaks and it would be such a neat thing to see. What I didn’t expect was how beautiful and MAGICAL the countryside is. We travelled through thick forests and beautiful alpine valleys and villages and farms and castles and churches and meadows and I Was Blown Away. I felt like I was on a Disney ride that just kept going with more beauty around the next bend.
The stark change into an all new culture was neat. I loved that you could feel the language in the train change from Grazie and Ciao, to Auf Wiedersehen and Danke. The menu in the dining car offered sausage and schnitzel instead of pizza and pasta. The building roofs changed from red tiles to dark peaked alpine slopes. The orchards and vineyards became forests or meadows. I was like a child – I was annoyed that I couldn’t be on both sides of the train at the same time. I didn’t want to miss a thing. (The young couple across from us on the train haven’t looked up from their phones for the entire 7 hours – I felt like shaking them and telling them they are missing unbelievable beauty. But maybe they’ve seen it many times. Maybe like us travelling through our beautiful country – we look at our phones and miss out! I haven’t seen it before – and I can’t take my eyes off the views. Austria is beautiful! I wish I could just share 1/2 the beauty my eyes saw – but pictures out the train window are just not cutting it!
As we descend and get down into Vienna, we could see the vineyards that make their famous wines. I would love to spend a month in the countryside we just saw, but am excited to see what this beautiful city is all about too.
Your pictures are fabulous and thank you for sharing your travels with us!