Day Sixteen: 5/8
OK, every trip has one bad day. Today is our schedule from hell! We had to
get up at 05:30. Did someone forget to tell Steve we are on vacation? We don’t ever get up that early, even for
work. We checked out of the hotel. It
was fortunate that we packed the night before, so we only had to get dressed
and head out.
We headed off to the water taxi. The only
people we saw were police in Saint Mark’s Square. We boarded the water taxi and rode through the Grand Canal this
time towards the train station. It was the first time that we rode down the
Grand Canal. We passed under the Rialto
Bridge. It was a nice quiet ride to the train station; we got to wave good-bye
to the wonderful sites in Venice.
Our train was at the station just as early as
we were. It was a good thing too as our coach was the "very" last
one. We had to walk down the entire
platform to the engine to get on the train.
It was 16 cars long!
We arrived in Verona around 09:10 to wait for
our next train to Munich. It was
due at 10:58 so we had a long time to wait. Steve found some croissants at the
tiny train station, which was a good thing because we left the hotel too early
for breakfast. Angie didn’t feel like being adventuresome and looking for food,
so it was up to Steve to forage for food.
Our train arrived and we headed off to Munich. The view through the Alps was
incredible. It was well worth the hell we had to go through to get here.
We saw some Alpine towns that had a river
running through them. Some of the Italian towns had acres and acres of grape
vines. Every square inch was used for growing! The beauty of this region is
indescribable.
You have to go and see for yourselves. If you ever go through the Alps, it is a
MUST to do it during the day. It’s
worth wasting the day traveling to see it during the day.
When we reached Austria
the towns were mostly used for farming.
No grapes here! It looked like
it was mostly dairy farms. The view was no less incredible though.
We reached Munich and had a little trouble
getting to the Pension. The directions were not complete. The Pension is very
nice and clean. It is quite different
than staying at a hotel. You are
basically staying in someone’s house. If you find yourselves in Munich and need
a quiet and clean place to stay, you may want to consider staying here.
Audrey Bauchinger
Zeppelinstrasse 37 (* near Duetsches Museum)
D-8000
Munchen 80 * Phone 089 / 48 84 44
audrey_bauchinger@compuserve.com
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/audrey_bauchinger/
After checking in we walked to Marienplatz. On the way, we saw
a couple lying on the bank of the Isar River.
They were totally naked and well you know what naked people lying on the
side of a river do! No, we did not stop
to take a picture!
We arrived at Marienplatz and looked around.
We decided to walk to the Englisher Gartens.
This is a very beautiful garden. We walked through the gardens for a very nice
and relaxing walk. We walked for about an hour. We did not have the camera with
us, so we didn’t take any pictures. If
you have a chance, this is a great place to go and have a beer and get a
pretzel.
In the garden we saw the two towers. The
first is The
Chinese Tower, built in 1789. The second is The Monopteros,
built in 1838.
After walking through the gardens we headed
down Leopold Strasse. We stopped and ate dinner at Leopold’s. This restaurant
had very good German food. The only problem was that Steve ordered a Pilsner
and got apple juice. Okay so Steve’s German is rusty.
After dinner, we took the U-Bahn back to Marienplatz and took the bus
back to the room. We crashed almost immediately when we got back.
Angie made an
observation tonight that the worst thing about Europe is the cigarette smoke.