Day 5 - Saturday 16th September - Munich to Venice

After a hearty breakfast we set off to the station, which was fortunately only a few minutes away,and in the rain of course. We bought some rolls for the trip, found our DeutschBahn train and our seats and settled in for our long journey to Venice via Verona where we would be changing trains. We had been on this route before when we had gone from Innsbruck to Venice in 2009. We travelled through the beautifully picturesque alps,  through tunnels. We passed many castles up on hilltops, some looking quite delapidated, some looking quite elegant and superior to the towns below.  We passed dozens and dozens of vineyards with the red grapes still waiting to be picked and pretty mountain town after town. The train was very comfortable and before we knew it we were in Verona lugging suitcases up and down steps to change trains. We found seats but then changed them so that we could fit our cases with us. After a while John realised that his umbrella wasn't where he thought it was. He wandered back to the seats we'd started at, there was a man in a long white dress with a little hat on sitting there but he didn't ask if he'd found a brollie there.  Then when the train stopped at Mestre we saw the man in a dress get of the train with John's umbrella safely tucked under his suitcase strap! Bye umbrella. Our Freccia Rossa wasn't as fancy as the German train but still comfortable and we arrived in Venice around 5pm. When we came out of the station there were hoards of people, but not the tourist hoards, it was a bunch of Italian nutters protesting against the new government law that children had to be vaccinated to attend school! Seems these nutters are all over the world. Ahhh Venice. We always feel like we've arrived home when we get here. Such a beautiful fascinating city that we never tire of visiting. We pushed our way to the ACTV ticket office to buy our 3 day vaporetto tickets, then headed to the Linea 1 vaporetto stop and made our way to Ca' d'Oro to meet Elena who would take us to our apartment.  We followed her down Strada Nova past the street to the last apartment we had, turning left, right all the time forgetting to take note of landmarks. Fortunately only one bridge to cross because when we got to the apartment, I'd forgotten that we were on the top floor and no lift. But what a gorgeous entrance - a courtyard full of lovely greenery and we clambered and hauled up the lovely old marble steps, then discovered that we had another huge flight of stairs to go! But what awaited us was worth it, an enormous, elegant apartment with a long balcony over a quiet canal with gondolas slowly cruising by. Heaven! Elena left us after passing on the usual instructions and information and we collapsed into the beautiful white leather sofas, one each. Once we'd checked the place out, opened all the cupboards etc we headed out to find the supermarket and explore our new surroundings. What a fascinating place this is. We wandered and wandered and as we'd decided to eat out we looked around and settled on Osteria dal Riccio Peoco close to home. Looked full of locals and not tourists which was perfect. The lady who served us was a real character and when we hadn't decided when she came back she told us we could take as long as we wanted because she didn't finish work until 2am. John decided on the Fegato alla Veneziana con polenta bianca (livers Venetian style) and I had Fritto Misto di Mare both super delicious and for dessert we had a specialty of the house - a luscious custard served with 2 types of traditional Venetian biscuits to scoop it up with. What a wonderful way to end a long day. We made our way back home and again fell into bed.