Kathy & Ron Dew Europe

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

And you probably think this guy was a tourist "plant"...but NO..he just happened to be in the train station in Interlaken Ost, our first stop in Switzerland, and politely obliged to have his picture taken. How fun is that?! Interlaken Ost (East), by the way, is a beautiful little town at the foot of the Alps. In Interlaken we boarded a 2nd train bounded for the Lauterbrunnen Valley.

Made it to Wengen!

... last blog, left at the train station. After the initial rush of now what do we do ... we went to the train ticket office, presumably to find another train to Wengen (with multiple connnections and extra $$$), then look for a room for the night. In talking with the train staff, he typed something into his computer ... then looked at the clock on the wall and said ... a train leaves in four minutes for Mestre (the next station off Venice island) ... then we could catch a train leaving in three minutes from Mestre to Milan ... and then use our originally purchased tickets (if we pay an addition eight euro each). He said if we made the trains to Milan, we would have ten minutes to catch our orginally scheduled train out of Milan ... and back on schedule. We ran to the train and caught it ...

Let's pause for a promo of the European rail system ... its wonderful! We just can't imagine this happening in the U.S. Public transportation is wonderful in Europe and its really all you need to get around. Just dive in and become a local, figure it out (not that hard) ... and move around efficiently and inexpensively. The trains are very comfortable with power ports, overhead luggage racks, tables, food, beverage, and bathrooms ... and as we know now, the trains leave exactly on time!

So, here's our train connections ... Venice to Mestre to Milan ... then Milan to Speiz, Switzerland ... then to Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen to Wengen. The train from Lauterbrunnen to Wengen (4,600') is a cog railway. The trip up the mountain was like a Disneyland train ride ... amazingly beautiful as we passed very green hillsides, thick forest, waterfalls, cows (with bells), and tunnels while leaving a surreal valley below and snow covered mountains above. We rode Italian trains to Speiz ... then Swiss trains to Wengen.

Our train ride took us through the northern Italy's lakes' region ... and its very beautiful country. We especially liked the area of Spesa ... a lake city nestled among the mountains. The ride through Switzerland is simply breathtaking ... it's like using a green Photoshop filter on your pictures ... the green countryside is such a deep green hue ... very unreal ... and really indescibeable.

Our next blog will be on our stay in Wengen ... but just to let you know, we are currently on our boat on the Rhine River (today in Strasbourg, France) ... and have already been to Basel, Switzerland (where we got on the boat) and Colmar, France (Alsace region) ... tomorrow is Heidelberg, Germany. The internet reception is spoty on the boat ... doesn't work while moving and iffy at the ports. We are falling a little behind in our blogging ... but the days have been full with sights and wonderful eating experiences (and the wine is not bad either). Regarding the wine, its so smooth with no after effects or taste ... usually we both get headaches after a couple of glasses of wine. Ron keeps wondering why his waistline is shrinking while eating four course meals with different wines with each course ... and the pastries are to die for!

P.S. ... the internet is reallllly slow ... so downloading pictures may not happen for now.

Saturday, September 18, 2010

More images of Venice ...

Just sharing a few more images of a really unique city ...

Venezia

Venice, still Italian but very different than Rome. Fascinating the way life is conducted without roads with the morning commute looking much like us but with boats jamming the Grand Canal. Venice's water buses (vaporetti)and water taxis carrying people to work and kids to school; other boats tranporting food supplies, furniture, trash, and construction materials; and special construction equipped boats.

Venice is simply a beautiful place, the building architecture, the canals, the narrow walks (maybe five feet wide) lined with shops and restaurants, bridges, and, of course, the gondolas. Losing yourself in the back walkways is an adventure ... and just plain fun, when you finally find your way back to your hotel. From Rome we learned to look for the street names on the building corners (if you can find one).

We stayed at the Hotel Becher close to St. Mark's Square (maybe a three minute walk) after you find it the first time. The hotel is very elegant with a canal platform/dock with tables and chairs for watching the parade of gondolas pass by and for being picked up for your gondola ride.

Impressions ... after arriving at the St. Lucia train station, we caught a vaporetta to take us to our hotel. The trip takes about 25 minutes (if you catch the fast bus ... fewer stops). Each turn on the Grand Canal brings different sights and sounds ... truly amazing sights to digest in such a short trip. We got off the vaporetti at St. Mark's Square and walked through the square attempting to find the information center, to get a map to our hotel. After walking to the two locations that Rick Steve's book showed, we gave up and starting walking in the direction we thought the hotel was located ... and then stumbled across the relocated information center (something to write Rick Steves).

We spent most of our time just adventuring around Venice, eating, looking at the variety of stores (it seems Italians really like their shoes and purses ... and in Venice, carnavale masks) ... and of course in the early evening a gondola ride. The rides are expensive ... but worth every euro. Our gondoleer never stopped talking over the one hour ride and seem to know everyone along the canals.

The next day we were off to Wengen, Switzerland ... and our challenge of making five train connections, so we knew that we'd better be on time for the trains (trains are extremely punctual ... and absolutely leave at the scheduled departure times). We needed to get an early start to catch a vaporetta to get us safely in time at the train station by 7:50 a.m. So figured for a 25 minute vaporetta ride to catch a boat by at least 7:15 a.m. Here's the rub, the express vaporetta is the #2 line ... you don't want to take the #1 line, which takes at least 45 minutes (stops at every bus stop). Well, no one told us that the #2 didn't run until 8:00 a.m. in the morning. We left by 7:10 ... and arrived at the train station at 7:55. The train had left ... we looked at each other and then looked at the empty train tracks ... and thinking now what, since we have multiple connections to get to Wengen.

Our adventure continues ...