We left Munich early in the morning for our drive to Venice, Italy. Our final destination would be Rome and we decided we would take a little detour through Venice on our way. The car rental company promised us a full sized SUV but when we picked it up it was smaller than we wanted. Since it was the last weekend of the Oktoberfest there were no more cars available. It was OK when we drove to Garmisch the day before but now that we had to put all our luggage into it, we discovered how small it was. We were packed into that little SUV with no room to spare.
We stopped off in Garmisch again to have breakfast before hitting the road for Venice. Our drive took us through some beautiful areas of southern Germany and into Austria. We drove through and got a small glimpse of Innsbruck, Austria. The mountains and surrounding countryside were amazing. We arrived in Venice in mid afternoon.
One of the first things we discovered upon arriving in Venice is that you do not drive in Venice. Cars are not permitted. This was a small detail we were unaware of and it proved to later be a major obstacle. Everything is delivered by boat - supplies, food, garbage pickup, everything. We found a garage to park the car for the night. It was a garage that you had to leave your keys in the car so we had to take everything with us into Venice. Not sure of the final count but everything included 3-4 large bags, 2 backpacks, 1-2 carry on bags and two hats purchased at the Oktoberfest. We loaded everything on a ferry that would take us across to Venice and our hotel.
The scenery was amazing and the first views of Venice were not like anything I could have imagined. We got off and began our search for our hotel. We only had a general idea where it was so it took us a while to locate it. At one point Sandy and I stopped with all the luggage while Joe and Pete attempted to find the hotel. Finally we found someone who could point us in the right direction. The problem with Venice is that if you take a wrong turn down one of the streets or passageways you could be lost for hours.
When we got to our hotel we were informed that the four of us had been put into a suite. Pete had booked our rooms online and they had to be paid for in advance. The manager assumed since we had the same last name we were a family and would be much more comfortable all together in a "nice" suite. As Pete tried to explain, we were on our anniversaries and did not want to share a room. However, we were informed that there were no more rooms. Our nice suite did have two bedrooms but only one bathroom. Since we were only there for one night we decided it would be OK. We had dinner at an outdoor restaurant overlooking the water. It was a beautiful night and a relaxing dinner.
Bright and early the next morning we explored Venice. We took a gondola ride around the city and saw some of beautiful architecture it had to offer Not quite the romantic boat ride I had envisioned but very relaxing and peaceful. We saw where Mozart and Casanova had lived and were amazed at this beautiful city that is slowly sinking. In most cases the first floor of a lot of the buildings are unoccupied. As a matter of fact, three days after we left Venice, while watching TV in Rome we saw pictures of Venice under six inches of water. Where we had lugged our baggage and explored the city was under water!
Around mid-day we said goodbye to Venice and headed to our next destination Rome. Along the way we again saw some beautiful Italian countryside, mountains, vineyards, farms. We finally got to Rome late afternoon. Joe had enjoyed driving until he got to Rome with the traffic and confusing streets. It took us some time to find our hotel but we had finally arrived at our final stop.
Next up - Rome, the Eternal City!
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