3rd September - ROME to Venice

Rome to Venice 3/9/10

Awoke early as we had to catch our train to Venice.  Taxi picked us up at 7am and we made our way to the Termini railway station.  Our train left at 7.45am and we had a 2 1/2 hour trip to Venice.  We arrived in Venice it was cloudy.  We caught a Vaporetta to Rialto and it started to rain as we got off.  We stopped and had a slice of Pizza as we were hungry after our train trip, then we walked with our cases over bridges and down alley ways to find our Forrestria Monastery in Castello.  Boys were a bit tired from lifting our bags up the stairs over the Ponte (bridges).  We came across 2 large green doors and this was the entry to the Monastery.   We were early so we left our bags in the luggage room and went and had a hot chocolate, coffee, beer etc at 1.45pm we went back to the Monastery. Sam, Luke and Tom were in a triple room on the 1st floor, and Pete and Lou were in a double on the 1st floor.  I had to help dad lift his bag up the tiny, narrow stair case (there was a lot of groaning but we made it).  The rooms were basic but clean. Mum and Dads room overlooked a canal and as the Gondolos and speed boats went along the Gondolias would call out to make sure that there wasn’t another one coming around the corner, a bit like the way we use our horn on the road. We dropped our bags off and walked back to San Marco Square, there were people everywhere.  Dad took heaps of photos of us, the Basilica was huge and we walked all around the square where there were beautiful shops and string quartets playing music.

We took the lift up the  C to the top where there was a fantastic view all over Venice.  We stayed up here and took loads of photos.  We came back down and caught a water taxi around to Rialto Bridge Euro 50.  We looked at the shops and walked back to our room for a rest and change for dinner.

The buildings around us were brightly coloured and old, ivy hung over a few of them and washing was hung out of the windows on lines.

We walked to Marco Polo restaurant for dinner.  Sam, Luke and Mum had a three course meal for Euro 19 each, Tom had a Prosciutto pizza to himself and dad had steak and vegetables.  Food was lovely.  Tom was very tired and fell asleep at the table.