Ulm Area-Innsbruck, Austria- Venice Italy

Monday 17th September

As we leave the lovely little village here in the Ulm area, I thought you may be interested in some of our fellow bus travelers.  We have met a couple from Australia who have become our traveling companions.  Their names are David and Beth and funnily enough there is another couple on board called Pam and Nick.  This is great for me who normally has no skill in remembering names, so I just think of Mum and Dad, the only problem is making sure I don't mix up the couples.

There are 2 other Kiwis who we met at breakfast this morning, one from Palmerston North and the other from Christchurch.  Coincidentally she worked at the Convention Centre in Christchurch so we were reminiscing about the earthquake and the effect on people.  She unfortunately lost her job as a result of that because the centre has since been demolished.

We have a group of Americans who seem to be one group of friends and another large contingent of Australians who have gravitated towards each other and formed a group.  So while we are one tour, there are now some fairly well established groups within the larger group.

Our driver is Pepe, he is from Naples and we all feel very safe.  Our tour director, as already mentioned in a previous blog is Peter whose sense of humor has really become evident and he seems well organized despite him coming off sometimes as not.  But I think this is part of his charm. If any of you were thinking of becoming a tour director, let me tell you, you will have to be VERY patient as you need to deal with all sorts of different personality types.  Quite a skill which thankfully Peter has in abundance.

 Pepe and Peter

Given those personalities, it is just as well the rule on the bus is rotating the passengers through the seats.  So you are not stuck beside the same passenger for the entire journey.  Each day you get on the bus you move up 2 rows while you are on the left and then when you cross over to the other side you move 2 rows down the bus.  This means a different seat but also the people opposite you change too.

And so we leave Germany, heading through a tunnel and on the other side we come into Austria. It still seems odd that as we pass through all these borders there are no formalities to be completed.

We had a short stop at an alpine village surrounded by stunning scenery. The tour director recommended we try the local specialty, an apple strudel, but me being the chocolate lover I am I couldn't resist the temptation of a chocolate covered, custard filled doughnut that our Aussie companions were chomping on.

Unfortunately the one I picked up wasn't custard filled, so I blamed David for misleading me, but he protested saying "you only asked me where the doughnuts were".  Colin, quick as you like, reckoned David had been "misconstrudeled".

The journey continued across the alps via Fern Pass through to Tirol, which is the "frying pan handle" of Austria if you look on a map.  There were so many little villages sitting at the base of the alps with quaint little cottages, churches and a smattering of castles too.  There was just a bit of snow on the very tops of the mountains.  One can only imagine what this must look like in the winter.

We had about 1 1/2 hours at Innsbruck where we stopped for lunch, a walk around some shops, but also visited the Swarovski shop.  This was amazing.  The colors in some of the items of crystal for sale were just gorgeous.  It was so hard to make a choice, but I finally settled on a bead for my Pandora bracelet.  Simply gorgeous.  

While I was doing that Colin had a chance to take some photo's so I will leave him to write about the little village.

While Janine was making her purchases at Swarovski, I ducked down to the main square to see if I could grab a couple of souvenirs.  The buildings are quite similar to those in Brussels.  I think I have said before these could equally be at home on the scene of a train set or one of those little weather stations where the man comes out when it is raining and the lady when it's fine.  I only wish we could have had more time to find out about the history.

 

Me back again.  From there we continued on through the Alps and crossed the Europa bridge into Italy and continued our journey through the mighty Dolomites. 

Much the same to look at as in the Fern Pass, but a little bit more rugged looking and not much vegetation.  Apparently the dust from the Dolomites mixed with New Zealand soil makes very good fertilizer!

We arrived in Venice about 5.30 pm or so.  We had just enough time to unpack our suitcases, (we are here for 2 nights), before we had dinner in the hotel.  Bread to start, then the mandatory pasta as a starter and then a dish of what looked like chicken, but tasted so gamey, we suspected this was rabbit, but were told it was chicken.  Who knows but it was quite nice.  Dessert was that classic of Italian dishes, Pannacotta.

Following this, David, Beth, Colin and I and two Canadians, Kaitlyn and Josh (we had opted out of the optional tour preferring not to pay for it), decided to make our way into the main area of Venice.  Our hotel is on the outskirts, so this entailed first finding the bus station using the directions given us by the concierge, then trying to read the timetable which was of course in Italian.  Where the heck is a gorgeous English speaking Italian when you want one.  However, all was not lost as a couple of ladies told us which bus to get.  Trying to pay for ticket was another matter entirely, and I think the bus driver couldn't speak English so we got a ride for free.  We did wonder if the police would be chasing us for our fare when we got off, but we were lucky.

We wandered around looking at some of the buildings, canals and the few stalls that were still open.  These are your typical souvenir places, selling all manner of trinkets hoping to relieve you of a few Euros.  I can't wait until tomorrow to see it all in daylight.  On that note, it is time for bed.  A very busy day and it is looking like it is going to get very hot.