Europe Day 11: Driving Day (Venice to Pisa to Florence)

One stop packing
Today was a driving day – with really not too much to look forward to except one stop at Pisa. Beginning today, we have begun to streamline our packing and leaving procedure for bus days as these early mornings are just too chaotic trying to go up and down between breakfast and waking up and bringing luggage down and boarding. All at once is good by me.

Rolling, rolling, rolling
The fast pace and constant things to do is starting to catch up with me so I basically passed out on this really long drive to Pisa. Leona says she abhors Pisa because it’s become a tourist trap with nothing much to see, and tons of “looky-looky” men about, so we’re only going to be there for about 45 minutes. Enough time to get the tourista photos everyone’s dying to get, get to a bathroom, maybe grab some food and that’s it.

Pisa
Within the central walls of the palace grounds, there is only the church, the palace and the bell tower (Tower of Pisa). Besides that, there is only a very small town outside the walls and nothing much else there. As Leona noted, what there IS lots, and lots, and lots of are souvenir and tourist shops, stalls, cafes, etc. However, regardless of all that – there are still a TON of people there who had come to see the Tower and town.

Typical Pics
With Liz and Chris, H-Rabbit and I ventured off to take the “usual” poses – even Gnomie got into the game. What was hilarious was that there was an entire field length of tourists all lined up taking the exact same photo! Apparently us humans just aren’t creative enough to think of anything new! All along the field, the place had set-up stone or marble pillars that were strung together with chains. There were also a ton of "No walking on the grass" signs. This left people basically climbing up onto the stone pillars to get the perfect shot of themselves with the tower without having anything else in the background. If I was steadier on my feet - I may have tried it - but we decided keeping ourselves planted on the ground was good enough for us.

Looky-Looky!
My funniest moment in Pisa was definitely when standing beside some of the Looky-Looky men who had laid out all their wares along one of the entrance roads, all one sheets or blankets – I’d say about 4 or 5 of them at least, with more standing around holding their wares on their arms. Well – within five seconds of a whistle and one lone man running through the street – these other men had packed up their stuff and gone running at top speed (god knows where). A minute or two alter came the strolling policeman. My comparison pictures are hilarious – first – the street is teeming full of people and products – five seconds later it’s totally empty – like they’d never been there at all. Ha!

NOTE: I guess I might have to explain what “looky-looky” men are. Basically, most of the sellers of fake purses, sunglasses, children’s toys, etc. along the streets of Italy seem to be all ethnic immigrants (which when looked at with a social perspective is extremely sad and aggravating) – and definitely do not know (or pretend not to know) English and/or Italian as a base language – therefore the only words they have seemed to pick up in order to get tourists to look at what they are selling is “Looky-looky”. And yes – it’s true – they do actually say that – over and over and over again. The sight of this actually bugged me a lot – I may post separately later about this incident as a whole after the trip.

Off to Florence
After everyone had satisfied his or her picture urges, we headed off to Florence. While I understand where Leona’s distaste for the city has stemmed from, I wish we had been able to spend more time there – if even to simply feel relaxed while we had stopped instead of consistently daily grind of go-go-go – especially on a day when time didn’t seem to be much of an issue.

On the road
The passage to Florence was quite beautiful, with the countryside including lots of sights of small towns, and fields and fields of sunflowers at every turn. It would have been nice to be able to stop every once in awhile at a lookout or such – but it seems Europe hasn’t developed the same knack as North America for creating lookout points along the highways. All there seems to be is service stations with really bad views, and nothing else nearby.

Firenze!
When we arrived in Florence, we went first to our pretty cool hotel, and then got ready for our included dinner in the city. We were dropped off along the river, which was a beautiful sight in the last glimpses of the sunset. Our dinner seemed to be at a family restaurant, where we were served spaghetti, garlic bread, salad and peaches.

Regatta! No…. RED GARTER!
From dinner we then went to Red Garter, which turned out to be a really great pub night. It was a lively bar with two different rooms, the major one catered to large-scale karaoke later on during the night. Our drinks (mixed drinks!) were served to us in pitchers! Obviously – it was a guaranteed way to get fairly smashed. Since the karaoke was bar-wide (and there were hundreds and hundreds of people there) it turned into a really raucous night, with tons of singing, dancing and having fun. I think everyone left that night pretty happy.

NOTE: Funny story (re: title above) – for days Leona had been telling us that we were definitely going to have two amazing nights in Florence – one at Red Garter and one at Space nightclub – however – because of her Australian accent – everyone who wasn’t Aussie had no clue that she was actually saying “Red Garter” – we all thought she was saying REGATTA! So to say the least – some of us (I won’t say who) actually thought we were going to view some local Regatta – not go to a bar named Red Garter.

Tucking In
After the bar – some of the group headed with Leona to Space Nightclub (where we are going tomorrow anyway) and the rest of us headed home to get some sleep for the long day ahead in Florence. I didn’t want to be disappointed again like I was in Venice by missing the Gondola ride – so I knew I wanted to be fresh, alert, healthy and fast in order to make sure I didn’t miss my other “want” of the trip – to see “David”!

Europe Day 10: Venezia

Train-ing in
Today was a normal day. Yay for not having to get up in time for a bus! We walked for a little bit to the local train station in our area so that we could train-in to the Venice islands. It was actually a pretty far ride – we have GOT to make sure not the miss the last train back or it’s going to cost us a fortune – and several headaches – trying to get back on our.

Raining Ferries
Just as we boarded our Ferry, once again the plague of rain that has been the norm on this trip started again. The Venice ferries really aren’t ferries at all so much as little tour boats that fit about 50 odd people or so – so the rain that was pelting the area definitely gave us an adventurous ride being so close to the surface of the water. Thankfully, upon landing the rain disappeared as quickly as it came, and it looked like maybe we’d be okay for the day (or at least most of it).

Piazza San Marco
From the docks, we walked quite a bit around the edge of the island, past four waterway bridges, to the Piazza San Marco. This is where a lot of the main tourist “attractions” are actually centred in the city, and where we would be seeing the two demonstrations that would begin our day.


Murano Glass
Our first stop was to a Murano Glass maker’s demonstration. To be honest – I actually found this demonstration absolutely amazing. The artisan made a vase and a horse sculpture right in front of our eyes in less than 5 minutes. The glass house does both blown glass pieces as well as shaped. It was wild to see how malleable the glass was – it looked like pulling taffy. Both H-Rabbit and I would have loved to pick out an heirloom or keepsake piece, but the prices were severely out of our reach. The smaller pieces in our price range just weren’t big enough to really represent a unique Venetian piece, and looked like stuff we could even get back home – so while we sighed and lamented, we were really good about not picking anything up that we really just couldn’t afford. (Though even now I am still despairing over passing up the gold inlaid purple shot glass and decanter set I saw – it was to die for!)

Covered in Lace
From the glass demonstration and gallery, we then went to a lace demonstration at the last lace school in Venice that focuses on the local art of handmade lace. The place was covered in beautiful examples of the craft – it’s hardly believable that it was all done by hand. While it is inspiring to think of the time and craftsmanship required to create such pieces – lace isn’t really my thing – however, because the prices weren’t bad – I picked up a tiny keepsake and a present for someone back home who would love it more than me.


Getting Lost in Venice
Leona’s one main piece of advice for Venice was to get lost in it – so that is exactly what H-Rabbit and I did. To be more honest – we really didn’t have a choice. For every city so far through our trip, Leona had been able to give us pretty awesome maps that were clear and easy to follow – however for some reason her Contiki package from head office forgot to include the Venice maps. So here we were trying to follow a very rough photocopied version, and well – we gave up after about 10 minutes. With the rain, the traveling and the putting things in our backpacks and pulling things out constantly (to save them from the rain) – the map was a bit of a disaster. So – simply trying to keep track of north, east, west and south – we decided just to wander enjoy the wondrous views and picturesque alleyways.


The most amazing pizza ever!
Heading into the maze of streets, we realized we hadn’t eaten in forever and found the most amazing pizza place ever. It was a small tucked away place in the middle of God knows where (we were “lost” remember – can’t even give you one iota of where the place was). Instead of selling their pizza by the slice – they sell it by the weight – so basically you can pick and choose however much you want, from whichever pizzas you want (mix and match even), and they then weight it all and you get your price to pay. I absolutely adored what I got – though H-Rabbit wasn’t extremely impressed by hers. There was nowhere to sit to eat so we eventually made our way down a dead-ended alley (dead-ended by water) and took some time to devour the slices, while simultaneously keeping them away from droves of pigeons.

Rialto Bridge
As we wandered, we eventually found ourselves at the Rialto Bridge. We walked through and along the market passageways, which were filled with a ton of artisans. Here was yet another example of flea market wonderfulness that Toronto severely lacks. As you walked further and further away from the bridge, the prices got better and better so eventually I found a large masquerade mask for our wall. I didn’t go all out and get a ceramic version, but the one I got was still fairly delicate. I hope it makes it home all right.


Basilica di San Marco
Magically, we seemed to make our way back to Piazza di San Marco and decided to line up to see the Basilica di San Marco. While the church was very quaint and nice, it actually wasn’t all that impressive. What I did end up being impressed with was a small girls youth choir from Texas that came into the church and sang while we were there. They sounded magnificent, with perfect pitch resonating through the always-amazing acoustics of a cathedral style church.


The Doge’s Palace
After the church, we went to see The Doge’s Palace, and were expecting a line-up from what we heard from other people – however when we got there we almost thought that it was closed – there was no line! This aspect of our day actually turned into a pretty amazing visit. The entire palace is covered in beautiful and intricate carvings, frescos, paintings, woodwork, tapestries… you name it, this place had it. The collections throughout the rooms were breathtaking – not to mention the architecture and structure of the palace itself.

Our goal, of course, for the palace was to get to the “Bridge of Sighs” that was used to move prisoners from the courts built right into the palace to the prison next door. This was the last chance prisoners had to look out onto the outside world before being locked up. We took a few pictures from within to match up to our pictures of the bridge from the outside so we could get a feeling from “both sides of the fence.”

Downpour
As we were finishing up in the palace – we got hit with yet another downpour. Thankfully we were able to wait it out perfectly dry within the palace walls. It was actually neat to see the play of dark, light and water within the palace walls, as the entire inner core of the palace is an open-air courtyard. Without moving we could tell when the rain stopped and we could move on. Just in time to meet the rest of the group too for our collective Gondola ride.

Disappointment
However – we were to miss out on the one and only thing I had ever wanted to do in Venice. Our gondola rides were cancelled at the absolute last minute because the company feared it would start raining again as hard as before – and all the Gondola’s are stopped in such weather. There was nothing to be done and the group dispersed as a bunch of the people was to go to dinner as a group (we skipped out) in about an hour – so even if the Gondola’s became free again – the group as a whole couldn’t go. Some people managed to get a Gondola ride on their own – as other companies were still riding their gondolas out despite the rain – however H-Rabbit and I weren’t that lucky. I was really disappointed and must admit it’s a sore spot on the trip for me.

Hail in Venice
While the company was right – it did rain again – it didn’t happen until a few hours later. We would have been gone and back from our rides before it ever began. However, admittedly, it didn’t just simply rain again – it hailed! Hail in Venice! H-Rabbit and I got caught out in the middle of a small piazza right in the middle of it – it was crazy. The power and size of the hailstorm was truly nerve racking. I don’t think Venice sees too much hail as the nearby cafes didn’t even know what to do with their umbrellas and tables – it was funny to watch, as they stood dumbfounded at the falling umbrellas and such.

Quiet Dinner
In the end – the rain and hail didn’t seem to want to let up, so when it got a bit lighter, we trudged on and found a small restaurant to grab a bite. We had a beautiful (and cheap) dinner of spaghetti, caprese salad and bread. Afterwards, we walked around some more. Heather made a stop to do some Puma shopping and then we took our time making it back to the ferry docks for the boat ride back to the train station.

Ish-time is aggravating
Well, Ish-time worked in reverse this time – instead of leaving later, we almost missed the ferry home because the group left earlier than the time we were even asked to gather together. Thankfully – the first boat filled and they needed to call a second so we weren’t left behind. We had a hilarious ferryboat ride home, as the people who went to the group dinner seemed to be just a little bit “tipsy” from all the free wine they got. It was jokes and laughs all the way home. The “party” continued on the train ride home with tons of antics and even an episode with a disgruntled ticket conductor. Yay for our new Italian friend, who got us all out of a jam by interpreting. We finished the day with a nightcap with the group, but then tucked in at a fairly decent time.

Europe Day 09 – Our Slightly Disastrous Day (Munich to Innsbruck to Verona (Not!) to Venice)

No easy access
Once again, it was yet another early morning. We managed to get the Internet working in just enough time to check email, write home, quickly blog about why I haven’t been blogging, and find out that H-Rabbit had passed her Bar exams. She was super excited. We were leaving really early this morning because we had a ton of stops to do before arriving at our next hotel in Venice.

Left behind (Disaster One)
Crazy thing from this morning: we left a person behind! Throughout the trip, Leona (our tour guide) has been telling us quite stringently that we have to be on time for departures because the bus simply cannot wait. Between a combination of drivers’ driving rules in Europe, appointments in different places and simply the physical time it takes to drive to each location – the schedule had to be adhered to. Well – this morning we figured out that one of our group had never come back from the partying of the night before. Her stuff was still strewn around the room and her roommate said she never saw or heard her arrive back. We were told there really was nothing that we could do. Leona left word with the hotel staff about our plans and contact information in case the person came back, she also called her head office to let them know what we were doing, as well as touched base with the local police about when she needs to file a missing person’s report. In my books – a girl alone in a strange country, in strange company – was pretty bad news, but – there was nothing else to be done.

Beauty of the Alps
Driving through the mountainous areas and ranges was quite beautiful. Just as in the UK, there are a ton of castles along the way – but it was too hard to catch them on film due to the speed of the bus and how so many of the European roads are lined with massive trees, bushes and walls.


Innsbruck
Our first stop of the day was in Innsbruck, Austria – we got there at about 11am. We saw the famed “Golden Roof” – has something to do with some rich Hansberger family thing – but I kind of missed the story for some reason. Will have to look that up when I get back. I do love the look of the town. The streets are once again cobblestoned, and the buildings really do have a specific architectural nature that simple rings ethnicity, culture an flavour. I also adore that European culture loves to "colour" their buildings rather than paint them. You can tell that the colour of the walls it either created with the natural colours of the materials used, or added to the actual building materials that create the structures rather than painted on afterwards in coverage.

Leona took us to the large Swarovski headquarters store where we were given vouchers for a free gift and a small historical lecture. We then got time to shop. The prices were okay – but not awesome. Some of the prices of the actual Swarovski pieces are actually higher than they are at home, for the exact same pieces, so I stayed away from the original stuff for sure. Instead – I picked up pieces from the secondary Swarovski line that I really haven’t seen as being available in Canada. The pieces are all by international jewelry artists that have used Swarovski crystals in their pieces, rather than pieces made actually by Swarovski. In my opinion – this secondary line is actually quite a bit more creative and unique. I ended up finding both a ring and a pendant for myself, as well as a pendant for my mom for her birthday.

Off to Verona
Besides the Swarovski store – there really wasn’t much time given to us to do anything else. Another Contiki store push I believe – but at least I enjoyed it. We just had time to pick up some fresh fruit from a stand for “lunch” and then we got back on the bus. I definitely want to come back to Austria – but probably to a few other cities. Heck – I might even be cheesy and do a Sound of Music tour – who wants to join me?

Disaster Two!
So here we are, off to Verona, which Liz is anxious for us to see because that’s where her family is from and where she spent the week before the tour at a family wedding, when what happens? Our bus has broken down only about 30 minutes into our drive. More to come…

Well we’ve been here for an hour – and the mechanics they’ve called have finally come, however apparently it’s too dangerous to do anything here at the side of the road, and we also need another guy who knows how to work with the bus’ computer system, so we’re headed to a service station. Thing is… I am confused as to how the bus is okay to drive to a service station – but not to just continue driving to the next town… I’m also confused as to why a mechanic who doesn’t know what they need to do for the bus was sent, and not the guy who does… but c’est ca.

So yeah… we have now been sitting at this service station for… four hours!!!!!!
OMG – so not impressed. I think Contiki seriously needs to revaluate their procedure for when something like this happens. We’ve been told this “happens all the time” which kind of begs the question why a back-up plan for these types of situations has NOT already been developed. Making your tour guests sit for four hours in a service station is definitely not something that should be simply swept under the rug as “something that happens”. My suggestion is that if a delay of this nature hits the two-hour mark – then Contiki should provide for some sort of transportation for the tour members to be taken to the nearest town (not the nearest service station) where they could at least enjoy the local culture, maybe find a park to sit in, and have somewhere more to be than a 10x20 room and a parking lot that looks onto a highway.

No Verona
Well – we’re finally on our way again and due to the impromptu “hostage taking” (yeah, I’m pretty bitter about this whole thing), we aren’t going to be going to Verona. We’ve been told it shouldn’t matter since stopping at Verona was “just an option and not actually part of the tour”. Let’s just say I’m ignoring that such a thing was said… because flat out – paired with “this happens all the time – just deal with it” – it’s basically put me on edge… While I actually appreciate when people are direct, concise and don’t bother to wander on rolling tangents when trying to explain things – when you’re dealing with a tour group of people, that maybe, perhaps, has members that took over a year and a half to be able to save to be on this trip, and went the “cheap” route because that’s all they could afford, and not because “they’re trying to be cheap”… there is a still a line at which some things are better left un-said all together, rather than trying to say it … bluntly.

Straight to Venice
Well – we’ve just finished our drive to mainland Venice and pulled into our pretty nice hotel. I’m less angry now, but I think more because I’m just tired and worn out and really want to just forget about it all so I can really enjoy Venice tomorrow. The “Venice” that everyone knows and hears about elsewhere in the world is actually only one part. Our hotel is actually quite far inland on the mainland and we’ll need to take a train and ferry tomorrow to get to the core of the city “islands” where all the waterways are.

Funny enough – Pride has followed us yet again. There’s a Gay Pride party going on up the road. We were tempted to check it out, but our bodies told our brains to check in early for the night instead. We had a pretty good meal of lasagna, salad and chocolate pizza, and Elie sprung for wine for our “little” table. Joop joined us as well and kept us in absolute stitches. I would kill to have had him on video that night.

Wrap up to Disaster 1: Leona came to tell us at dinner that she got word the missing person had actually gone home to the States – or so says her Contiki main office who apparently got in contact with her family members. Conflicting info is that apparently the Munich Hotel still has all of her stuff. I have a feeling there’s more to this story. (Addendum from later – Leona got a call from said missing person and said she was all right – she needed to go home – HOWEVER – the call was coming from a German number… crazy!)