Venice, Day 6 - 19th February 2016

After yesterdays senseless wandering, today Hugh and I had planned a more structured day. Fairly early in the morning we headed to the Vaporetto dock at the Fonte Nova, where we caught the number 12 Vaporetto out to Murano and Burano.

We caught our first Vaporetto out to Murano, and arrived there at just after 9 o'clock. In our normal lives, 9 o'clock is bustling and all action. In Murano, the town was just waking up, with streets still quiet. Some of the shops had just started to open their doors. We followed a pretty straightforward path to the Fondamente Manin, which seemed to be the main tourist street, stopping in at various stores to ogle the beautiful glasswork. The glasswork was obscenely expensive, but we did find a small glass jewellery store, where I bought Hugh some glass cufflinks and myself some blue glass earings. After making our purchases we headed towards the glass factories and parted with some more of our euro to see a glass blowing demonstration.

It was very interesting to see how quickly the glass makers could manipulate the heated up glass to create their design. We watched a glassblower turn a heated round bulb to a stallion in a matter of minutes, plucking out the design as if the horse already existed, and he was merely helping it to find its proper shape.

'Natale di luce inn una cometa di vetro'

At around 10 o'clock we made our way back to the dock, stopping off along the way to look at Simone Cenedese's blue glass sculpture, the 'Natale di luce in una cometa di vetro', where Hugh stopped to take lots of photos.


I hoped to buy a glass magnet (magnets are my thing when I travel) from a stall on our way out, but sadly did not have the correct change. We were fast learning in Italy that everyone expects you to have the correct change, but nobody wants to give you any change. It was a bit of a catch when buying things, but it did limit my spending, so I guess it was good in a way.

Our next stop was colourful Burano, so it was back on the number 12 ferry again for a 20 minute trip to the Northern parts of the lagoon.

Bright Burano

Burano was much busier than Murano, with crowds of tourists bustling about. The movement of people against the rich and overbright buildings of Burano created a dizzying blur of energy for the vibrant island.

Immediately we walked into the side streets of Burano, eager to see how far we could follow the trail of colour until it stopped, imagining what it would be like to live in such a place where even the buildings were dressed cheerfully.


In the back streets of Burano there were no other tourists, but plenty of fat cats stretched out on stone pathways, soaking up the sun.

Cat in Burano

As everyone else rushed around, probably spurred on by dazzling colours, we slowed our pace. The sheer beauty of Burano seemed to ask us to stop and savour the moment. For lunch we ate € 5 pizza rolls of eggplant and zuchini in the main street, watching another plump feline demand attention of anyone who passed it by. It became seemingly personally affronted by anyone who declined to give it attention.

Our bellies full and with camera batteries on empty we took the number 12 back again to Venice to rest for a while.

In the later afternoon, nearing 4 o'clock, we made use of Unica card again (by now we had well and truly gotten our moneys worth from it) and took the number 1 Vaporetto down the grand canal to the Basilica Di Santa. From here we could look across the canal and see the hoardes of people still congregating around the San Marco area.

Basilica Di Santa

The sun began to lower and we made our way back across the grand canal so Hugh could take photos of the red-streaked sunset over the Basilica Di Santa.

Sunset over the Basilica Di Santa

To finish off our day, we stopped at the flooded crypt of San Zaccharia. Entry to the church San Zaccharia was free, with a €1.50 charge to go down in the crypt. The crypt was dark and smelt of stagnant water, but felt peaceful.

San Zaccharia flooded crypt

Dinner was a quick affair of lasagne and fish on the way back to Palazzo Abadessa, on a total of 20000 steps.

Venice, Day 5 - 18th February 2016

A quiet calle

We started off today with a delicious buffet breakfast at our hotel. Our mouths watered as we chose items from a selection of cereals, yogurts, bakery items, toast with cute mini potted jams, fruit, cold meats and cheeses. Starting our day off with a big breakfast was a must to give us energy for the day, especially as I was still feeling quite ill, but there was no way I would let a cold get in the way of Venice.

After breakfast we headed off to a laundromat that we had googled, down near the San Marco area.It cost around €14 to wash and dry a load of laundry. When the laundry was done we made a quick stop into our hotel to drop the clothes off and use the toilets. One of the great upsides to Venice is, our hotel was never more than a 15 or so minute walk away, and was often on our way during our wanders anyway, so we could drop in to use the toilet instead of having to pay €1 to use a public toilet.

We spent our day just walking around and soaking up the feel of Venice. We started off near the San Marco area and worked our way around Venice from there. San Marco was one of the only open areas in Venice, with a large piazza area that was so different to the rest of the small calles that made up the city of Venice.

We stopped in a street adjacent to San Marco for a salami roll for lunch, which we ate standing up at a bar. Sitting down anywhere incurred extra charges for only a few minutes seated.

The garbage collect

After San Marco we walked around Cannaregio near our hotel, making our way into the residential back streets of Venice. The area was devoid of other tourists, and we only saw locals going about their daily lives. Old ladies pressed past us in small calles, wheeling their shopping along. Laundry hung from open windows across the canals. A garbage barge collected plastic bags of waste placed on the waterside. All the trade that we could see, happened by way of the canals. We passed a school, strolled through a rare patch of nature in a park and found an open piazza area where dozens of local children were playing ball games on the stone ground. Their parents sipped on warm drinks as they socialised, sitting on the few benches scattered around. Dogs were very popular pets and followed their owners to every shop they entered and every restaurant they ate at (this was common theme across Italy and England). 

We took note of every part of the atmosphere of living in somewhere as unique as Venice. In the residential area a waterborne ambulance carried a man to the nearby hospital. The hospital was, in its own right, stunning architecture that evoked a sense of beauty, instead of the usual fear and sadness that surrounds such a place of pain and sickness. A feeling instead, of healing, inside the strong stone building. We even slipped quietly inside the main entrance of the hospital, to find displays of old medicine practice, adding even more history to the old structure.




The Acqua Alta Libreria was a hidden gem in the residential area, a book shop with a gondola, overflowing owith various tomes and scraps of paper stacked into the wooden craft. The walls were crammed with books from floor to ceiling. The shop twisted outside, where sodden, stinking stacks of more books made up a set of stairs leading to a vantage point from which you could view the canals. It was the weirdest bookshop I had ever been in.





As the day drew to a close we made our way back to a more popular area, where shops were still lit brightly. On the main Rio near our hotel we found the Ca'Macana mask shop, one of the more unique mask shops in Venice. Ca'Macana run workshops where you could learn to make and decorate your own mask, and if I had had the time, would have loved to have done so. I left with a teal steam punk creation that looked both bad-ass and delicate.

AT 25000 steps we made our way back to Palazzo Abadessa. You can read about dinner here.

Milan to Venice, Day 4 - 17th February 2016

Yesterday's journey was very long, and tiring. We spent about 8 hours sitting on a train, and didn't arrive in Milan until evening, when we were dead tired and I was feeling quite ill with a cold. So we didn't really pay much attention to Milan. This morning we did. I can't say it was my favourite place ever, but it did well enough as a place to stopover. If you can ignore the filth on the ground and the smell of urine and cigarettes. What's travel without finding the places you don't like, too?

Luckily our train out to Venice left quite early in the morning, and we arrived at Venice's Santa Lucia station late morning. We immediately headed to the tourist booth to purchase our Venice Unica and Rolling Venice cards. The young lady who served us didn't seem happy in the slightest that I knew about the young adult Venice Unica and Rolling Venice deal, which we got for €28 each. The card gave us 3 days of free transport from the time of first use (and allowed us to take a suitcase on each, when normally suitcases are counted as a second person), 24 hours free wifi and discounts to various galleries, museums and other tourist attractions. Normal prices for the Venice Unica if you are not in the young adult or child bracket were alot more expensive at around €30 for only 2 days of public transport and no other benefits. One ticket on the ferry system was really overpriced at €7.50 per person, one way,so the Unica and Rolling Venice combination made financial sense to us.

After leaving the ticket office, we mapped out a route with our free wifi and hauled our bags through the crowded main street and over foot bridges for a good kilometre and a half. We found our hotel easily as it was just off the main street, which ran all the way from the train station.

From the moment we stepped into our Hotel, Palazzo Abadessa felt like home. When we left three days later, I missed the hotel. The staff were very friendly and welcoming, and our room was just spectacular. One of the reasons we had chosen to travel in low season was because our budget stretched to places that in summer, we couldn't dream of affording.

After settling in, we took a short wander down the street to find lunch. We found a quiet restaurant and ordered a ham and mushroom calzone each for lunch. As you can see, the calzone came out fresh from the oven really blown up, and neither one of us managed to finish our lunch. It was very delicious though, and only cost €6.50. 

We continued our wander through the main streets, winding our way to the touristy area near Ponte Di Rialto. The day got cooler as it progressed, so we stopped for large, thick italian hot chocolates at a chocolate shop. From the outside of the shop, we thought we were walking past a hardware store. What looked like dirty, rusted tools were displayed in the shop windows. It wasn't until we got closer that we realised that the tools were made entirely out of chocolate. What made them even better was that the parts moved. I bought a nut and bolt set for €2.50 to munch on, which actually threaded well enough that the parts could be separated and then twisted back together again. The chocolate was hands down the best dark chocolate I had ever tasted in my life. We tried to find the store again a day later, but could not seem to make our way back, and we had no idea what the name was.

After our delicious afternoon tea, we had a simple dinner at a restaurant only a street or two from our hotel.

Zurich to Milan, Day 3 - 16th February 2016

Jet Lag certainly worked in our favour today. We got up early, as snow flurries started to fall in the still dark skies over Zurich, to catch the 7.30am train from Zurich HB to Chur, where we changed to the Bernina Express to further go on to Tirano, in Italy. In Chur we stocked up on snacks, as I had read that there was no real food available on the Bernina Express - only overpriced coffee and alcohol.

The Bernina Express was something we had both been looking forward to; a 122 km train ride of pure scenic beauty. The track is recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and is well worth the title. The journey took us 4 hours (the name is quite misleading, as it is quite a slow journey) from Chur to Tirano, through the beautiful Swiss Alps.

From Chur the Bernina Express started winding into the mountains almost immediately, although gradually. Close to Chur we saw little villages built into mountainsides, and crumbling castles and churches perched high on cliff faces, signalling beacons of the civilisations below. I couldn't fathom how the churches and castles were built in the first place, as some were perched on areas just large enough to support the buildings themselves, and were built before the modern age of machinery. How they managed to get the building materials up there was beyond anything I could imagine toiling at.

Pine Trees

We wound over the Landwasser-Viadukt, into the Landwasser Tunnel and out to the Alps. The scenery seemed to change with every tunnel we passed through. Hundreds of pine trees, weighed down with snow clumped in branches, would occasionally give way to traces of human civilisation. The snow thickened as we climbed into the grey atmosphere. The train ran alongside a road covered in snow for a while, from which we saw people sledding down the twists and turns that were usually reserved for tyres.

At just over 1 and a half hours in to the journey the train found its way into dazzling sunshine and reached St. Moritz. In the town at the top of the world, the intensity of the sun hitting white snow created a glitter that whilst beautiful, required us to put down the sun shade on the window and snap our sunnies on.

After leaving St. Moritz we passed through the Stazerwald Moorland, an area of thick white snow, and not much else. From there we saw the Lago Bianco and Lej Nair - the light and dark lakes of the alps. In many areas the lakes were covered with metres of white snow. It amazed me to see a few people wandering about the area, and a small bivvy set up, exposed to the elements. I don't think I would be brave enough to camp, there in the freezing cold, by myself. Kudos to that person.

The Bernina Express reached Ospizio Bernina, the highest station of the journey at 2253m above sea level. We stopped at the Alp Grum station to let a few passengers off. Alp Grum had a restaurant set against the mountainside and that was it. No other houses or structures were close by, and it seemed accessible only by the train. 

I can't tell you too much of what we passed after this point. I had woken up with a bad cold, and once we started the descent down from the Alps towards Tirano, my sinuses got the better of me and I spent the steep ride down in a unique sinus pain agony.

I was only able to appreciate the view of Tirano once the grade of descent had lessened and some of the pain had gone away.

Descending

Once we arrived in Tirano, we had 4 minutes to rush off the Bernina Express and hightail it to the Italian train station across the square from the Swiss station. Luckily we had bought our tickets for the Tirano to Milan train at the RHB shop in Chur during our half hour wait there, which we knew to do thanks to Seat 61's brilliant guide to the Bernina Express. We also used his method of purchasing tickets, which saved us an absolute fortune. What should have cost us $180 approx. AUD, ended up costing us just over $60AUD for the both of us to catch the Bernina Express, when we booked through the German website instead of the Swiss RHB website. 

The train to Milan was uneventful, and I think we mostly just slept for that 2 and a half hours. We arrived in Milan very tired, and checked in to our hotel which was only a few streets from the train station.

Zurich, Day 2 - 15th February 2016

I woke up today and everything hurt. Standing for a few hours on end to watch a parade, wearing a 5kg backpack is a little exhausting, I guess.

So we decided to have an easy day today. It's Monday, so that meant that a lot of things were still closed, including the Zurich museum, which we wanted to see.

We had another rough night from jet lag last night, although we managed to force ourselves to lie in bed until about 5am before we turned the TV on.

At around 8am we got ready to leave our hotel, walking to the number 2 tram stop that was just outside our hotel. The number 2 took a little longer than the streetcar 31 to reach the centre of Zurich, and went further down the Bahnhoffstrasse instead of stopping right near Central.

Hugh Near the Bahnhoffstrasse

Zurich Old Town

We walked from the Bahnhoffstrasse into old town Zurich for breakfast. As I mentioned before, a lot is still closed in Zurich on Monday, despite being a business day. Finding a nice cafe for breakfast was a bit hard and I was hitting 'major grouchy' with my pre-breakfast mood. We trudged into some back streets of old town, where we found an unassuming shopfront with signage indicating it was a tea room. We expected that it would be fairly ordinary on the inside, but after we entered Peclard and found a small flight of stairs, a beautiful room of cushy red chairs opened up before us. The lighting was soft, the temperatures were warm and it was exactly what I imagined the gryffindor common room would be like. The food was pretty good to, so that was a bonus.

Zurich Old Town, covered in confetti

After refuelling at Peclard and somehow dragging myself from the squashy, comfortable chairs, Hugh and I explored Old Town some more. All through old town was evidence of the parade from yesterday. Colourful litter (read: confetti) filled every crack between cobblestones, and floated in fountains. We wondered how long the cleanup would take or how anyone would ever hope to clean it up. A few minutes later our question was answered, as we saw a small vehicle with massive sweepers running across the walkway. It somehow managed to make the streets look tidier, but I think it was nearly impossible to remove it all. I was still finding confetti reminders of the Carneval in my daypack 3 weeks later.

Sausage & Roschti

We headed back towards Zurich HB for lunch, stopping in to the Federal for some traditional Swiss Roschti. Roschti is a grated potato dish with flavouring and for being so simple, is quite delicious. We shared a plate with a German sausage. We'd previously decided that we were going to be a bit foodie on this holiday, so we followed up our roschti with some hot chocolate from the Sprungli Cafe. We also stopped into the Laderach chocolate shop later in the day. Its weird to note that hot chocolates in Switzerland are expensive, at around $10AUD for one, but we could buy 6 or so craft chocolates like truffles for around $3 AUD, which is considerably cheaper than Australia.

Laderach Chocolate Taps!

Going up the Rigiblick

In the afternoon we caught a tram just up past the university area, to the Seilbahn Rigiblick funicular railway. We rode the Funicular cart up to the top of the track on the Zurichberg Hill. The Seilbahn Rigiblick was included in our transport day pass and was a steep 5 minute journey from top to bottom that gave stunning views of the city as we ascended. It ran constantly up and down the hill.

The nearby Polybahn Rigiblick, which was much shorter and went to the hospital area

We got off up the top at the Rigiblick station and headed towards the entrance to a forest on top of the hill.

There is no possible way for me to describe the beauty of the forest. All I could think of was how enchanted I was that the trees and woods that they describe in fantasy books were real. The leaves on the trees and ground were striking shades of oranges and yellows, that contrasted strongly against the dim light of the overcast day. Zurich itself is a very gray city, and it was easy to forget that colour still existed in the world as we walked around that day. As we walked further into the forest small flurries of snow started to swirl about us. It was still very light and melted almost as soon as it alighted on the branches and dirt of the forest.

In the forest

After a small walk through the quiet trees, without seeing another soul, we headed back down the funicular railway, had an easy dinner near central, and headed back to our hotel to prepare for an early morning train the next day.

Zurich, Day 1 - Sunday, 14th February 2016

Happy Valentines day - from the land of chocolate!

After being absolutely exhausted yesterday, you would think that sleep would come easily. 4am saw both Hugh & I awake & jetlagged, with minds that refused to sleep. We managed to force ourselves to doze on and off while watching a dubbed horror film. Once 7.30 rolled around, a time we considered reasonable, we got ourselves ready to go off in search of breakfast. 

We stepped out into the harsh, cold wind (and quickly dashed back up to our room to add all the layers we owned) and ambled off towards what we had seen on the maps as a bit of a cafe area nearby to our hotel. Having been awake since 4am, and not having had dinner the night before, my stomach was giving me some serious hunger pangs. Sadly, our stroll in the icy wind served no purpose other than to further our hunger, as everything in Switzerland is closed on Sunday. Our hotel offered breakfast for 20 Swiss Francs per person (which was around $30AUD per person), but we weren't really intending on spending that much money. Instead we found the closest service station and stocked up on snacks for the day, including croissants for breakfast, and a coffee from a vending machine for Hugh.

After wolfing down breakfast, Hugh and I found the streetcar 31. We fumbled our way through buying some tickets from the ticket machine at the stop (which was a lot easier after we found the change language option) and bought a day Zone 110 ticket. The streetcar ran really regularly, even on a Sunday, which was something that we weren't very used to, as Sundays in Brisbane usually mean diminished services.

A short 15 minute ride later, and we had arrived in the centre of Zurich.

We had, to a small extent, planned our destinations on our trip to coincide with some of the festivals that were happening. Today was ZuriCarneval, a fun free Carnival with a street parade that wound its way through the Bahnhofstrasse. For a few hours, the streets were swarming with costumed characters, small floats and music and covered in pretty litter (confetti) and hay.

It was very fun and different to anything I have experianced in Australia, which is why we love going to cultural festivities like this when we travel.

The parade was very interactive, and much more than something to view. Confetti joined the rain pouring onto spectators heads, lollies were thrust into the hands of waiting children, and roses pressed into the palms of women in the crowd (and yes, I did get one. I joked to my husband that at least somebody got me a rose on Valentines day - its not something we usually celebrate).

My face became a canvas, as witches and demons rubbed sticks of purple and black face paint onto my cheeks.

We returned to our hotel later in the evening, tired, happy, with coloured faces and confetti in our hair. We had an easy dinner of take away pizza, eaten whilst cocooned in our doonas to finish our day.

Notes:

Hotel: Ramada

Costs to note: 8.6CHF pp all day tickets for Zone 110

Korean Air Flight - 12th & 13th February 2016

Today is the day! Today, my husband & I touched down in Europe for our Honeymoon.

Being in Australia, Europe is obviously a very long, long way away. About 23 hours worth of flight time later, and we are in Zurich.

We decided to fly Korean Air due to cost factor - they were much cheaper than other airlines. We had also heard pretty good things about them.

So yesterday (Friday) we left Brisbane International at about 8.25am. We boarded an Airbus A330 - 300, which has rows of 2, 4 and 2 in economy. Korean Air let you pick your seats basically at time of booking, so we booked one of the sets of 2 seats by themselves. When we boarded, we realised we had been lucky enough to book, by chance, the row in front of the crew sleeping seating, so for the most part of our journey had no one in the 4 rows behind us, so we could recline to our hearts content.

The flight was as comfortable as a 10 1/2 hour flight could be. Korean Air, when you board, give you a bottle of water (about 200ml), some slippers (everyone on the plane basically took their shoes off & used these), a pillow, headphones and a blanket. It made me pretty happy, because I basically just made myself a warm snuggly cocoon of blankets and pillows to ride out the journey.

The food was standard aircraft fare - Hugh tried something called Bibimbap which was too spicy for me, so I just ate the most normal meals they offered. Korean Air also feed you on a pretty weird time schedule, with one meal at the start of the journey and one meal at the end - which created around a 7 hour gap between food.

After the 10 and a half hours, we reached Korea and went through a very long and slow Immigration process. In Winter months, Korean Air will put you up in a hotel for a nights stopover, so our luggage was sent on to Zurich without us and we got to leave Incheon Airport to go to a hotel for a proper sleep (as we hadn't slept on the plane).

We arrived late to the Orakai Songdo Park Hotel, where a hot buffet dinner was waiting.

After a decent nights sleep we woke up this morning to continue the next leg of our journey - with a bit of early morning Korea thrown in for good measure.

Hugh & I got up extremely early this morning to see a bit of Korea, before our shuttle back to the airport at 10am. We had seen a park across the road, so we wandered through here. It was quite peaceful at that time, with pavillions and traditional Korean buildings. The mist hanging around was freezing and gave an eerie feeling.

From Central Park, we made our way to a main street and walked along it. It gave an interesting sense of Korean culture: We saw a lot of Engrish (Only Jesus. Only with Salmon - the name of a cafe), we saw a park near Central park that was more rubbish heap than park, we saw many different restaurants touting other cultures foods (including an Aussie Fish & Chip shop) and we learnt that Koreans really like billboards. Every shop had a huge billboard advertising their name and company.

After our brief walk around Korea, we headed back to Incheon Aiport to begin our next leg. This time, our Boeing 777-300ER had 3 rows of 3 for seats. I had swallowed my fear and picked a middle seat so Hugh could have a window seat (I really only like the aisle seats because I hate getting past people to pee. And I always need to pee on planes). My heart sank when a Korean gentleman squeezed himself in next to me. Or not squeezed, because the seats were actually really roomy & even had a little leg room to spare! However, not 2 seconds later he decided to just move himself to another empty seat closer to his friend at the back of the plane. So for the 11 and a 1/2 hour flight Hugh & I had 3 seats to sprawl across. I was glad of this because it was a very bumpy flight for the first 3 hours, with the seatbelt sign going on and off constantly. I had a feeling the captain was only taking the seatbelt sign off in short bursts to allow people to use the bathrooms, because it was still very bumpy when the lights did go off. He also advised crew to remain seated due to the turbulance. After the 3 hour mark the turbulance quietened down and Hugh & I watched a few movies.

We touched down in to Vienna for an hour and a half before leaving on a short 1 hour flight to Zurich, and arrived at our hotel at about 8.30pm at night, to go straight to bed, as we hadn't slept at all on the plane and with the timezone differences, we had been awake for 23 hours. Zurich was a very quick and easy airport to get through on arrival, thankfully, as there was every chance I would have fallen asleep in the passport line if it had been long.