Last phase of our European rail trip via Venice

I have previously reported on this trip in:

• From UK into Germany
• On to Innsbruck

Next we traveled down through the Alps over the Brenner Pass to Venice. It was not a speedy trip through the mountains, but work is ongoing on a 55km tunnel that could knock an hour off the journey. As you come down into Italy it is very striking how many vineyards there are.

You reach Venice over a long causeway from the mainland. We could not see much as it was misty, but I did spot a gondola before we reached the station. I was last in Venice as a young child, so I have little memory of it, but I suspect it has not changed too much.

We stayed at the

located in the old Jewish quarter, the original ghetto. The hotel was nice enough, but we had an issue with our room being really warm and all they could suggest was to open the window.

On that first evening we had a wander to a restaurant doing local food. They really like pasta with seafood there. Then we had a walk to St Mark's Square, which is the tourist hub of the city. It looked quite spooky in the mist.

The next day we went back to St Mark's as we had booked a visit to the Doge's Palace. You need to be up for some walking if you go there. The taxi boats and gondolas are expensive, but there are bigger bus boats that go along the Grand Canal. We did go on one of those later. Although the place is flat you are always going up and down steps on the bridges. Note the ambulance boat. We found the hospital on the north side.

The Doge was an official elected for life to oversee running the city and their palace is very grand. The biggest room could have swallowed several houses. Everything was richly decorated by the top artists of the time. There were rooms for various courts and official business.

If you were convicted in the courts you could end up in the neighbouring prison over the Bridge of Sighs.

We also went in the old library building that is a museum of art and ancient items.

Around that area there are lots of boutiques for expensive brands. The cafes can also be expensive, but if you go to some quieter areas the prices are a little better.

We had heard about this quirky book shop called

that had books on a gondola and in baths. People were queuing to get in. They have a tiny garden with a staircase made of old books. They had English books in there and we bought a couple of souvenir items.

We had a drink at the hotel before going out for dinner. I did have a pizza that night that was good.

The next morning we took the Vaporetto canal bus back to St Mark's so we could visit the basilica.

This church was built to hold the remains of St Mark that were 'acquired' by some Venetian merchants. It is stunning with mosaics covering the whole ceiling.

It is worth getting a ticket that lets you access the upper level to see the mosaics close up as well as more items and you can go outside to look over the square.

Of course we needed some refreshment after all that. The hot chocolate is really thick.

If you walk east from the palace it all gets a bit quieter and there is even a park that makes a change from the rest of the city where open green space is in short supply.

I had seen warnings about pickpockets in Venice and we nearly fell victim to those. As we walked through one of the narrow streets I caught sight of a guy near me and saw that my other half's backpack was unzipped. The guy and his friend walked away, but they did not get anything. Be sure to keep your valuables in a safe place, e.g. in a bag under your jacket.

We had dinner booked at

that evening as it was new year's eve and everywhere was bound to be busy. There was a fixed menu of five courses. This plate was after the initial appetiser of crostini topped with fish. On this plate we each had prawns, salmon, sardines, anchovies, tuna, scallops and more. That was followed by risotto topped with fried fish, then a rare tuna steak in a rich sauce and finally cake with cream. I had a small bottle of Chianti with it. This was not a cheap meal, but was our fanciest of the trip.

We had some time to kill back at the hotel before we were due to be picked up by a taxi boat to go and see the fireworks in the lagoon. We had seen barriers being put up all along the front as they would be expecting big crowds. The lagoon was full of boats of all sizes. There were some French folk on our boat and one of the guys proposed to his girlfriend just before midnight!

As soon as the fireworks finished the boats raced us back to the hotel. That was quite exciting. We had a fairly early start to get our next train so went straight to bed.

Our next stop was Turin on the way home. We only had half a day there, so we did a quick look at the historic centre. We did the Hop On/Off bus to see a bit more of the city in the time we had, but would need to go back to see it properly.

We had an even earlier start to get a train directly to Paris. Then we had to negotiate the Metro to get across to the Gare du Nord for the Eurostar. We had to search around for the right ticket machine, but got there in plenty of time. The whole journey back was fairly smooth. It was about twelve hours from Turin to home. We were lucky as there had been some power issues with the Channel Tunnel a couple of days earlier, but it was running fine by the time we got there.

Despite some issues it was a really good trip and we saw a lot. We would still happily travel by train again. You get to see a lot along the way and you get a nice amount of space, especially if you go for first class.

Happy travels!

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