Ramblings of a Spoiled Gen X-er: Travel to Venice (Country Number 7)

May 7 - Country number 7. 4:30 comes fast. We get ready and downstairs for breakfast. We take some yogurts with us. They don't have any paper cups for coffee or else I would take cereal. At least it's just a walk across the street for the train. It may be a longer walk from the entrance of the train station to end of the platform for our car.

It's only 1:45 to Lyon. I'm a little afraid I will sleep through the stop so I set an alarm.

The legroom is better when you don't face each. We don't have to fight for the same space.

I eat one of the yogurts.

The first stop is close so the next run is pretty long without stopping. For the next hour or so I go in and out of sleep. We arrive at Lyon and have 35 minutes so I pick up a sandwich.

There seems to be a little more leg room on this train. Maybe it's because it's an international train.

I was going to blog on this leg but its pretty remote and I don't have good cellular so I can only type notes. We go to eat our second yogurt and I realize I left the spoon on the last train. Man we are getting forgetful. I think we need to slow down some more. Maybe these four nights in Venice will be good for us.

We break into the sandwich.

It's really good considering it came from the station. Very nice bread.

Aparna watches a movie that I downloaded from Amazon. At least that is more reliable than the DirecTV downloads. I think after 30 days the DirecTV app freaks out unless you connect to the Internet and validate it. I'm really thinking about cutting the cord when I get back.

The Torino station is really dead. The upper terrace is closed. There is only one open place to buy food. We consider walking around the station but I don't feel like lugging all our stuff. We settle on another sandwich.

This train is the nicest train we have been on.

There is more legroom here. That's with the table folded down.

Even a free drink and chips.

We break out the sandwich and have lunch while watching Gatica. The bread is hard compared to the sandwich this morning.

This is when facing each other is bad. We put the iPad in the window but there is a lot of glare even with the brightness all the way up. Man I'm terrible at taking pictures from the train. I keep missing everything. There goes some lake.

Hello Verona.

We arrive at Venice Mestre which is on the mainland. We need to go to Venice Santa Luca. We check the ticket office but with our rail pass we can just board the train. Good thing these leave every 10-15 minutes.

Almost there.

Just like I imagined.

We decided to get a 7 day ferry pass since we will be here for 4 nights and the other pass is too short. As long as we take more than one ride a day it's worth it. The ferry is crowded. Good thing we don't have large luggage. We get off at the Rialto stop. It should be just over this bridge and our first left. Damn we've gone too far we double back and go down what I would consider an alley. Turns out this is a street in Venice. It's a straight shot more or less to our hotel. I thought this place had an elevator. No elevator but they have one of staircase handicap chairs. It's only up one flight.

The room is small with a double bed but the location is good. 5 minutes to St. Mark's Square.

Funny enough the bathroom is huge.

Aparna wants pasta but Venice is known for seafood and rice. That will be another day. The first place the stay.com app takes us to us packed. That's probably a good thing but I don't feel like putting up with a crowd like that. We find another place on the app nearby. It's busy but not as stupid. We actually get part of a table.