Europe Trip 2012 Day 7 (June 28, 2012): Trains, Planes, and Water Taxi's
It's always a great sign for a trip when your sad to leave a place. Waking up this morning was tough for many reasons but mainly we were both sad to be leaving the beauty of Switzerland. The good news is we aren't done with the European adventure yet, in fact we are not even close. The trip is just getting started.
We woke up at around 7AM and finished up packing our stuff to prepare for the journey. We went down to breakfast at around 8AM and tried to eat as much as possible to get prepared for the journey. We checked out at 10:30AM and once again had the hotel take us to the train station in yet another brand new BMW. We got to the train station ten minutes before our train departed at 11 to Chur. It was yet another picturesque ride in and we once again successfully transferred trains to take us into Zurich HB. From there we had to go buy a ticket for another train to take us to the Zurich airport. We some how managed to figure it out on our own with one of those automated machines, ran to catch the train departing in a few minutes and made it to the airport.
Unlike at the start of the trip the airport experience today was a slam dunk. We dropped off our bags and went through security. For the first time ever Jenn got pulled over in the security line and got the obligatory pat down and bag search something usually destined for me. From there we had a few hours to kill before our 5:50PM flight to Venice, Italy. So to kill time we went to Burger King and for 24 franks we got a whopper an order of onion rings, fries, hamburger, and a coke. It tasted identical to what you would get back home which hit the spot.
The flight only took about 45 minutes and we landed at Venice airport and were off to retrieve our luggage. As God playing a joke on us Jenn's suitcase was the second to last piece of luggage to make it off the plane, and needless to say there was a little panic until finally Jenn's luggage arrived and we were on our way. It took us a while but we finally found the the stand for a private water taxi and booked one to take us to our hotel the Hilton Milano Stucky. To get to the water taxis you have a good 10 minute walk from the airport to the dock.
From there we boarded a private water taxi that took us the twenty minute journey to our hotel. Jenn and I had a blast on the boat, we sat at the back and took in the beautiful sunset over Venice. Talk about getting you ready for Venice the water taxi did exactly that. It was incredible.
We checked into our hotel and were given a beautiful king room with a partial canal view on the fourth floor. We put our bags away and immediately hit the beautiful streets of Venice to find some dinner. We went over a few bridges and found a beautiful little restaurant nestled right up to the canal where we stopped for dinner. We got a bottle of red wine, and Jenn got her favorite pasta bolognase (second time on the trip) and I had a grilled steak. And my best way of describing it is it is great to be back in Italy. Jenn got some vanilla gelato and I had the tiramisu for desert. Both which were great.
What was really neat about dinner was that Italy was playing Germany in the Euro 2012 semi finals and won 2-1. The game was going on during dinner and for both goals and the win you heard the streets of Venice come alive. It is so amazing to see a country so dedicated to their teams, and it was really neat to be there to experience this again. Maybe Jenn and I are good luck because we were in Italy that last time the won the World Cup.
After dinner which ended at around 10:30PM we were exhausted and walked back to the hotel and called it a night. There are two things that I learned from today. First that Venice is extremely hot. And secondly and more importantly I can't wait for the next few days because it's great to be back in Italy.
