Moloney trip: Venice, Italy

I've admitted in earlier posts to being a bit of a train gunzle, so now that that's out in the open I can safely say that our overnight train was a pretty cool experience. We had a family cabin of four bunk beds which we were keen to jump into after a big day walking around Innsbruck. It was a little weird to be rocked to sleep by the gentle sway of the train, awoken by the heavy braking of the driver, rocked to sleep again, awoken by the clunking of the train being split and falling back to sleep not really caring which country we ended up in (we had a really nice staff member looking after us so we were confident that all was in good hands).
Arriving

Venice at 6.30am was another strange experience and it took a few moments to

orientate ourselves. Falling asleep on a train among the cold mountains of Austria and waking up by the canals of a very warm Venice was a strange but enjoyable experience.

We had to kill time until we were allowed into our apartment at 2pm so we checked our bags into the train station and went off to explore. The broken night's sleep on the train had us all fairly tired so we visited a cafe to recharge the batteries. But as the city doesn't really awaken until 9.30 or 10am, we checked out the boat system to get around town and tried to orientate ourselves. We met the agent at 2 to pick up the key to our apartment and eventually came to the realisation that maps are practically useless in Venice. The city doesn't follow any logical pattern, with you crossing bridges every 100 metres. I gave up on the map and eventually let the human GPS take over. I can't guarantee I took the most direct route, but it seem to work to just wander in what felt like the right direction. Even as I type this blog post on the steps of our apartment at midnight (only place the wifi works) I can hear an English couple arguing about the right direction to take.

It's hard to believe we're in Venice and we need to stop and just take in the surrounds for a few moments as it's all so very surreal. We played a game with the kids while we were waiting for the apartment key where we just sat on a bench and watched the locals going about their business, trying to guess what each person does, watching how they bundle their rubbish on the doorsteps to be picked up by a guy with a cart who then takes it to a nearby boat for dumping. Lachlan is astounded that there's no cars and is having withdrawal symptoms.

Today, Thurs 24 June we decided we needed a bit of a rest day so took a boat across to the mainland to visit a Venetian beach for the day. It was great to lay back in the sun (it's 28 degrees), contemplating our time in the snow a couple of days ago. On the way back from the beach we hired a four seater bike where in theory everyone pedals. I think I did 80% and

Sandra and Johanna the rest (Lach's feet couldn't reach so he had a good excuse). As I did most of the work, I suggested we pull our bike into a roadside cafe where a group of locals were watching Italy join Australia on the World Cup sidelines.