“I’m On A Boat”
This is our 8th day on tour.
Today started early; too early to be honest. We had to be fed, watered and on the bus by 8am. As we all know, that is too early for Nic and I. We did make it downstairs at 7:50 for a quick breakfast before boarding the bus. Today was a big bus day, we left at 8am and didn’t arrive in Venice until 5pm. Yep, 9 hours on a bus, or I should say 9 hours traveling.
I am used to the Howe/Heuer method of car travel: you get in the car and you go until 45 seconds before you either die of starvation or pee yourself. There is no leisurely stroll down the highway. You have to get from point A to point B and you HAVE to be in the car. You don’t choose to be. If you were a zillionaire you’d take a plane or a helicopter or something. But you have to take this car and no one wants to be in it so you get there ASAP. Your brother may crowd your space with a bag of food because he’s learned that he may not eat for 12 or 14 hours or your walkman may run out of batteries so you give your dad your Red Hot Chili Peppers tape to play, which has cuss words on it and is not suitable for you at the age of 13 so he takes it. Either way the goal: get to point B in as little time as possible so the family doesn’t implode.
The Rick Steves method of travel? Stop every 2 hours for 20-30 minutes. Now I know that the driver, Ben, who is awesome, needs a rest and I know driving a bus from Austria to Venice is a lot of work, but 30 minutes every 2 hours? That break isn’t for him that’s for everyone to pee and look at rest stop crap. If I had to choose less stops and more time in the destination city, I would, but I can’t so I make the best of it.
9 hours after leaving Austria we pulled into a bus parking lot in Venice. Now there aren’t any motorized land vehicles on Venice, no bikes, no scooters, no skateboards, nothing, just people walking and boats. Lots and lots of boats. So our time in Venice starts with all of us piling off of the bus and grabbing our bags. Most of us had lightened our load in Austria by putting things we didn’t need for Venice in a separate bag. Nic and i combined our stuff into 1 bag, it was still heavy but nothing like it’s been. We make our way from our bus to a Venician bus. What’s a Venician bus? It’s a boat. Yep, 29 of us with luggage pile onto a boat with the rest of the world. We cram our way into the back, some stand, some sit. 29 people plus luggage takes up a lot of space on these “buses”.
The buses are beat up old boats with tons of seats on them. They aren’t ferries like you’d go to Angel Island on but more like oversized general boats that they can bus people around on. Coming into Venice is awe insipring. No roads, boats every, rickety beat up buildings and people everywhere. It’s a mad house but we love it instantly. Nic, who doesn’t have to carry a bag to the hotel, is smiling and taking pictures as our bus takes us right up the Grand Canal.
The buildings seem to rise out of the water. They don’t slowly emerge or have gangways into the canals. The water simply slaps against the side of the building, seeps up under the ground. It truly is an amazing sight to see. The city was built on pilons that were hammered into soft soil and sinks about 4cm every 100 years. Combined with global warming the city sank 5cm in the last 100 years but also lost 7cm of depth to rising water. Pretty crazy they’ve seen 12cm of change in 100 years.
So, we take the Grand Canal to our stop, the Rialto Bridge. It’s the most famous and beautiful bridge in Venice. It is covered with little shops and people constantly. The entire bus empties and away we go to our hotel. Now, Venice streets are narrow, winding and confusing. The group stays together, mostly, and makes it to the hotel. Our hotel is very cute, Nic and I are on the 3rd floor again, remember that’s the 4th in the US and we don’t have an elevator and our bag weighs a ton. Well, too bad, we, I mean I carry it up 4 flights of stairs and to our room. It’s very cute, you can see it on Flickr.
We rest for a bit, take quick showers and head out for our orientation with Colleen in St. Marc’s Square. St. Marc’s Square (SMS) is the lowest point in Venice and thus floods most often. The tides change every 6 hours so the square can have up to 2 feet of water in it at some times of the year. The Venicians put out planks of wood on top of metal risers, creating movable temporary walkways. When the water is down, they take them down; but they simply stack them on the side for the next tide. Tonight, the square was dry; however, we could see water near the drains from what had been a recent “flood”. We don’t know how much, sometimes only a couple of inches come in.
Anyway, we take about 45 minutes in SMS with Colleen before heading to dinner. Oh, by the way, SMS has some pretty cool buildings in it. A lot of the decorations were made from treasures stolen during war so they don’t match. There is a greek statue with a roman head and an egyptian crocodile. Whoever ruled this area as time went on simply kept adding to the treasures. Some things look like a very very very old garage sale. St. Marc’s Church is one of those. It is covered in columns, not useful ones, just decorative, that people gave to the church after they conquered different lands.
After the orientation we went to dinner. The entire group walked down a few streets to find pub food. Neither Nic or I wanted a sandwich for dinner. Seriously right, we are in Venice and people are getting sandwiches. Screw that. I ran ahead and found a couple of cafes on the side. I turn around and Nic and Colleen are right there with me so the 3 of us had dinner together. We split a bottle of white wine and Colleen told the waiter that he was “ridiculous” because he wouldn’t give us tap water with our wine. He said we had to buy a bottle of water. Well, our wine comes out and a few minutes later, 3 glasses of tap water. Very well done Colleen.
For dinner I had the special seafood pasta. Fresh pasta with butter, white wine, shalots, garlic and tomatoes (yep, tomatoes) covered with small clams, calamari and mussels. It was fantastic! Nic had a garden salad with oil and vinegar and simple pasta with red sauce. She said it was good but I think mine was better.
After dinner the night just got better! Our treat from Colleen? Gondola rides (we knew she booked them for us. We only had to pay $25 per person; very cheap) with her favorite singer Michelle, an accordion player and bottles of bubbly. Joe, Jeanne, Rus and Fern were put in the gondola with the singer and the rest of us piled into 4 other gondolas, 6 to a boat. We thought Venice by day was pretty. Venice by night is breath taking. Very few boats out, fewer people. No noise from the motors. Just Michelle singing and the accordion playing us down the canal. The boats grouped together so we could all hear the music. Michlle was truly magnificent. Women were so happy they were crying. I mean this gondola with the singing and a full moon in Venice: baby making material. It had to be the best hour we’ve had on the trip. Even though we were with 27 other people it felt like it was just us mozy-ing up the canals.
Not that you could top the gondolas but we made our way back to SMS to see the live restaurant bands. There are 3 bands that play outside the restaurants in SMS. They were the original “battle of the band” and they take turns playing music with classical instruments. You can stand for free and watch, sit and buy a beer for $12 or go inside at the bar and buy a drink for $3. We went inside and found our bus driver, Ben! Score, he is a blast. We ran upstairs to use the toilet before ordering drinks. On our way back, who else is there? Colleen, Susan, Erin and Cindy. We all have a Spritz together. I can’t remember exactly but a spritz is white wine, ice, sparkling water and some sort of bitter liquor. The first sip was horrible. The second, not so bad. The third better and by the fourth it was really refreshing.
We polished off our sprtizes and headed back across the Rialto bridge to some bars. Venice isn’t a late town like we are used to. By 12 or 12:30 everything is pretty much closed. We found a bar, ordered drinks and sat outside on a pier on the Grand Canal for an hour or so. The six of us just chatted about life, our families, the trip and all points in between. It was a great way to end our night. We polished off those beers, strolled back into the hotel and called it a night. We haven’t been this exhausted since London.
Till tomorrow, our only full day in Venice, Ciao!
yeah!
I have to run my car to theshop (yes, you need to know that….) and then I can log-on while I wait…hmmm…yes, you go with me! Love a New BLOG!
HAHA! You are going to need a 10 step help book to detox once our blog is finished!
-K
It’s going to be a very sad day when the blogging stops. I was impatient waiting for a new one and checked before I came to work, thinking there wouldn’t be one… I was a few min late this morning! I haven’t looked if there are pics yet, couldn’t risk that before I got to work. Thanks for keeping us updated!
. You’re going to love looking back on these blogs in 20 years!
Hi Sharon,
New pics are uploading right now. I’m waiting for nic to get ready so we can go get Gelato and then have dinner on the canal. You should see Austria, day 7, and Venice, day 8, finish in about the next 30 minutes.
-K
Hi Guys,
just want to say the pictures are AMAZING…i put them on slindshow and sit back and enjoy thank you so much.the blogs are great too. makes you feel like we are there with you, i look forward to them everyday..glad to see you rode the luge nicole..i don’t recall seeing anything like that when Roger and I were there..but i sure do remember seeing the cows walking down those little streets in Austria.glad your having the time of your life xoxo mom
Glad you’re enjoying it! I’m happy that everyone is even taking the time to look at our page! A lot of people read every day, so very awesome!
The luge was great, it was right by Newschwanstein castle, did you go there?
The cows were my favorite! They were so sweet and so happy. They made California cows look sad!
NEW PICTURES!
Attention fellow blogger: SOMETHING they DIDN”T DO!!! Skydiving! Ah ha! I can’t believe that there is something they didn’t do!!!
—K and N—
love the chandeler (sp?) in your room! colors-so cool!
darn it…should have had you get a stien for D…he loves his! and tells me all the time not to break it…darn it!
Still LOVE the LUGE! so glad to see pictures of the track! Looked like you we having too much fun!
Shots of Crown..just great…Ben included?!?
Italy or vegas??? are you pulling one over on us?!?! I think I’ve seen some of this before???hmmm????
…..Thank you for including street pictures…. love those! I love the buildings in the towns!
Also, what’s up with the fence with points….their idea of “save”
The bar is gorgous! Kevin and his “women”- watch out for those Cougars! No men out on the town????
I LOVE your room in VENICE!
ps. “baby making material” hmmm… soviener????
Haha, there were plenty of men, but the ladies just gravitate to Kevin, what can I say, my man is HOT!
And, no, there will not be any souvenirs that I can’t buy with my good old Visa, so don’t go gettin’ your hopes up!
Alright…I can wait a little longer….but I’m sending you back there in a couple of years if it hasn’t happened yet!! Deal!?!
Kevin just kills me….who gavitates to Kevin?!?!…gay men and older women!
There is NOTHING safe about Europe! It is a total “at your own risk” continent! I love it! Wait until you hear what we got to witness tonight! I will blog tomorrow…too sleepy tonight!
I’m glad you like the street pics. I’ve been taking a ton because, well, I love them too!
Ha, we considered it! It was actually hang gliding, you run and jump off of a cliff and glide through the air! Thought it best to keep our feet on the ground (and really, not so sure we’d have been able to leap off the side of a mountain either!).
Yes, the glass here is amazing, Venice is known for its glass.
Luge rocked. We killed Canada! HA!
Ben was a good boy, he only drinks AFTER we get where we’re going!
Seriously, I said the same thing! “This looks just like Vegas!”. Kevin reminded me that this came first. Ha.
Now first thing you must know, just because Shelly got in four blog replys before me, does not mean she gets bumped to the number one spot! I was checking up until 11pm last night. Had an 8:30 am tee time and could not check before we left.
Now that that is settled…wow…Venice! Now you are where I want to be. A gondola ride sounds great! Your pictures, are as always, just fantastic.
What was the crack in the first line…traveling the Howe/Heuer way??? Schedule..schedule…schedule. Although I admire you both for a nine hour bus ride. Even though you made many stops, it is still nine hours! But Venice just looks as wonderful as I thought it would.
Now I really want to be there.
Hi Auntie! Golf over blog? I don’t think Shelly would have made THAT decision. Hmm. #2 fan is good, no?
Venice is amaaaaaaaaaaaaazing. So beautiful and unique. I love, love, love it here! You must come!
PS: I haven’t traveled w/ the Heuer family, but the Howe family travel style is pretty accurate to what he described. Why don’t those Howe’s like to stop!?
Absolutely not! I must stay in the #1 position. And, I had a good golf day too!! I decided that if your blog is not up when I check it in the morning, I wil just write something to stay in the lead.
As for traveling, I do not know why we don’t stop. You might ask Rowena what traveling was like when we were children…this could have a lot to do with it!
I know..Shelly and I need to both be #1! Since we are anyway.
Please only bring home souvenirs that can ONLY be BOUGHT! Thank you!
Now I’ll be checking like every hour to see if you’ve blogged about ‘what you witnessed’. Thanks for the tease. You’ll get like 100 hits tonight… so you’re not as popular as you may think. It’s going to be me and Shelly checking in.
I also thought it looked a lot like Vegas! Only better of course. I’m pretty sure I am the only one who has said I miss you guys! I should get points for that. I miss you!
Sharon
Hi, glad you miss me. I’m going nite nite, so you can check the blog manana! Nite!!!
Darren just found the stein he got 17 years ago on the shelf in your picture!!!
Also, In the cementary picture…. did you take the picture from that location on purpose…. (Mr. “Fuchs” Headstone?)- love it!
ps. Darren is having a beer and pulled out his pictures to compare…this is so funny…the quality is crap…but he has almost the exact same bus…and Neuchschwanstein Castle (yeah, i asked how to spell that)-Picture taken from the same spot you were standing! Crazy….or as I like to say “WTF!!!”
Hi there, Mom here: What a great blog, it seems however that we are always the last to read them. We read them at night and that way we enjoy your blogs and the comments. Some of the comments are very entertaining. Thanks for the special note about my b-day, I had a really nice day.
Glad you are having such a wonderful time in Venice, everything sounds just perfect.
Now to address our family car trips, I have to disagree!! You know your father stopped when ever you wanted. He just didn’t stop for long. Auntie did have it right however, my car trips as a kid were worse, I will tell you about them sometime.
Oh and I do miss you also, even though Sharon said it first I didn’t want to mother you. Talked to Nana last night, she was out all day and she is fine. Keep having fun and writing.
Thanks for the post card from Paris. It was a wonderful surprise.
Love, Mom (now heres Dad)
On the subject of food, try a fresh mozzarella cheese, tomato and basil pizza, in Nicole’s words, “AWSOME”.
Also, I was thinking about putting Red Hot Chilie Peppers on my Ipod. Thanks for the laughs tonight.
Love Dad