Venice, Part 9

Our day started off with a walk through the city to the Doge's palace.

Stop #1 The Doge's Palace

This was a surprisingly neat stop. The palace was gorgeous-but it was the art inside that was really surprising.  There were some amazing pieces and it was cool to learn more about the history of Venice.  It was also cool to see the prisons-they were kind of depressing, but they totally reminded me of the old prison's in the books I've read.  

Stop #2 St. Mark's Basilica

This had scaffolding, unfortunately.  But oh well...my goodness, once we got close it was stunning.  We did an audio tour and it was really good.  The mosaics were lovely.  The inside was amazing.  Truly amazing!  The gold was sparkling and I loved learning the stories and seeing the different style of church.  This was a MUST see for me.

Stop #3 Pigeon problem

When we ate lunch, we got bombarded by all the pigeons...seriously I HATED the pigeons.  They were everywhere and freaked me out.  Anyway.... that's enough about the pigeons. But we ate at a fresh market, which was really fun!

Stop #4 the Frari Church

This was a surprising church!  We had an audio tour and it was really cool!  There was some beautiful art by Donatello and it was gorgeous!!!  It was a great stop.

Stop #5 Dinner in the Rain

It started pouring around dinner time, so Mr. H and I braved the rain and ran to the water front where we wanted to eat dinner that night.  There was some amazing lightening and thunder going on and we ate dinner outside with the rain drizzling around us.  It was oh so romantic.  After we finished eating, the rain had stopped.  We made our way to St. Mark's square, got another pastry and enjoyed the orchestras.  These really were my favorite things!!!  There were about 3 orchestras going, and each would play all different kinds of music, my favorite being a "Sound of Music" medley.  So fun to dance in the piazza and enjoy the music.  We walked home pretty late that night, which was kind of scary...Venice has tons of tiny dark alley ways so I held Mr. H's hand VERY tight.  

The violinist looked scarily similar to John Locke...

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Part 8, Train Ride into VENICE

Okay team: almost done with the Europe posts. 

We had to leave Gimmelwald early to get to our train to Venice.  

However, that morning there was a HUGE wind storm!!!  

It is such a romantic thought to be in a village only accessible by cable car...but it was this morning that those thoughts were dashed as we realized we may not be able to get off.

Luckily, they did run one cable car and we barely made our train.  

Riding the trains in Europe was crazy!  One of our transfer stops gave us only 4 minutes to catch the next train...and so the minute it would stop we had to literally run around the train station to find our platform.  STRESSFUL.

But a fun part was we got to see the gorgeous scenery and stop in little random towns like this one:

All of our luggage for the ENTIRE trip

Those would be the Italian Alps in the background.

Stop #1 VENICE!

We finally made it to Venice and the first thing we witnessed was a pick pocket chase...right in front of our hotel! 

But Venice was stunning.  Seriously.  All the pictures don't do it justice...it is just like a magical story book city.  We checked into our hotel and walked around, grabbed dinner and just enjoyed the city. We ate pastries, listened to the dueling orchestras in St. Mark's Square and it was lovely.  

View from our hostel

Pastries we sampled

Mr. H w/ his map

Instead of paying for a gondola ride, they have public water taxis.  We took one home down the Grand Canal, and it was amazingly beautiful.  We were in the front of the boat, and it was oh so romantic. 

What a gorgeous city at night!

Switzerland, Part 7

Stop #1 Tram Ride to the Schilthorn

We woke up bright and early to ride up to the Schilthorn (one of the tallest mountain peaks in Europe).  It was a pretty ride up and the views at the top were nice, but we were actually kind of underwhelmed by it all.  The views were cool, but we probably would have saved the money and not gone.  Oh well---you live and you learn.  We were planning on eating at the revolving restaurant at the top, but when we found out it was 30 CHF per person for a little breakfast of pancakes under a warming lamp, we passed.  There was a James Bond movie filmed on this peak, and they had a museum.  We aren't big fans of James Bond, but it was a clever museum and got us some laughs,  We then went back down to Murren.  We were able to buy some delicious chocolate croissants and started getting ready for our big hike.

Stop #2 The North Face Trail

This was my favorite time spent with Mr. H the entire trip!  He is such a blast to hike with.  I told him he was my favorite person to hike with EVER, to which he responded "You're in my top five!" Ha.  Oh well.  This hike was a BLAST.  It was extremely steep though.  Seriously...the alps just go straight up and down.  One part of the trail was still through snow, which was pretty crazy.  The alpine villages we hiked through were still empty so we had the whole mountain to ourselves.  We were also able to see the Sprutz Waterfall--it was awesome!  We hiked right underneath it.  We hiked for about 5 ish hours and ended back in Murren and ate swiss chocolate and authentic Swiss Raclette, both which were amazing.  We enjoyed hanging out with everyone at the hostel.  It was an awesome end to an Amazing day.

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