Getting Lost In The City of Water

” Traveling is the ruin of all happiness! There’s no looking at a building after seeing Italy.” – Fanny Burney

So a week after accepting a housing offer, we hopped on a train and went to Italy! When we got back reality, we realized we had no furniture, internet, and still only one car. Since we haven’t had internet, I’m a little behind on my stories! After a month, we are finally getting the house unpacked and figuring out how to hang things on these concrete (not really, but it seems like it!) walls. But no one cares about that, so onto our next adventure. Since it’s been so long, I’m going to try and make this short and sweet.

On Day 1 in Italy my phone decided it no longer wanted to work, so I lost my photos, but luckily Justin took a few and shared his phone with me.  We left from a small station close to our town and got on the train we’d be on for about 8 hours in Munich.  This train ride had some fabulous views. This photo to the left are of the Alps and some vineyards in Italy. Stella loved it and was soaking in the views. It was my first long train ride, so I enjoyed myself too.
On top of my phone being silly, I made a huge blunder as soon as we stepped off the train. There are two Venice train stations and, since where we’d be staying was closer to the first one, lugged the family and luggage off at the first station.  I heard there were no vehicles in Venice, so thought that once you got into Venice it’d be everyone who was actually staying in Venice. Nope, there’s definitely buses that run onto the island, just not around the City. Don’t be Meghan in Venice on Day 1.  You’ll walk around for two hours trying to find a bus stop in a city with a beautiful language that sounds nothing like Deutsch or English. The walk makes you sweat your butt off, ticks off your children and husband, until you finally give up and pay 30€ for a taxi. Oops!

We stayed in Oriago which is like a 30 minute bus ride from Venice or 45 to Padova.  It was a VRBO and really pleasant and cheap! Throughout our trip we kept running into these toilets that were in the floor. Obviously, Justin and I didn’t care, but Stella refused to use them.  Then we were walking around looking for a normal toilet for us to pay for and her to use. Just a warning to all traveling with small, freshly potty trained (or not) little humans.
 
If there is one thing that became apparent to us on Day 1 it is that, although Italians are extremely friendly, they are in more of a hurry than Germans while driving! Cars are always honking, flying past you at NASCAR speeds, and drivers yelling at everyone around them.
Italians may be crazy drivers, but the quote I started this post with was no accident.  Compared to the US, German has gorgeous buildings. I love all the small, brightly colored downtowns. Italians buildings are even more gorgeous. Maybe it’s the weather, maybe it’s seeing all the laundry hanging out to dry. I don’t know, but I could walk around and look at the buildings all day.

This beautiful building was seen on the boardwalk on our way to the Giardini park. The park was really neat because you literally find yourself lost in a maze of buildings, trying to find ways to go over the canals, running into dead ends that you don’t see coming because you’re surrounded by buildings.  Then you have this, quite large, park with tall, old trees, people walking and running, and park benches to just sit and relax. You don’t find park benches walking around Venice, so it’s a nice place to rest your feet.

I was also extremely intrigued with the Winged Lion of St. Marc.  I read somewhere that the Winged Lions are like the city’s mascot.  When Napoleon’s army came through, they destroyed these lions whenever they saw them, leaving Venetians quite upset.  (A quick google search found this in the book The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of the French just to check myself). While we walked around the city I felt like I was playing a game of “I Spy” and looking for these creatures. They really are everywhere.

In our last night in Oriago, we stopped at this little pizza place we had to have walked, ran, and biked past a million times and not noticed. Since we eat dinner around 1700, we were, as usual since most places didn’t open until then or later, the first and only patrons in the restaurant. Although no one spoke English in the place, the cook saw Stella and made her her own heart pizza in the stone oven. Remember how I said Italians were extremely nice?

So our trip to Italy was quick, relaxing, and showed us how different Italy and Germany are! I hope to go visit numerous other cities in Italy, but we were so happy to be back to our house in Germany.  Maybe it’s the countryside views, cheap beer and food, and being able to communicate with the Germans with the ein bisschen Deutsch we know. Or maybe it was not having to travel with little, screaming children! Oh well…
Until our next adventure.