We had set our alarms for 6am to catch the train from Munchen HBF to Venice at 7:32am. It was a chilly morning walk to the station as the sun was still an hour from rising. We bought two coffees and two pretzels and sat down at our track two to eat our breakfast and wait almost an hour for our train to Venice Italy, passing through Austria on the way. 

The train arrived thirteen minutes before the departure and we got on board car number 259. The hallway of the car was a free-for-all, as people tried to push past one another in the narrow hallway. We finally made it to our cabin and someone was sitting in Jives’ seat. We both awkwardly sat in the wrong seats until the gentleman checked his ticket and moved to a different compartment. We were sharing a compartment with a German couple and a young German lady. We made friendly conversation about travel and not being from America with “that guy” in charge in the USA…. and then an American tourist joined our compartment. He never once mentioned that he was American, but he certainly was. It was almost as if he was hiding his nationality. It was a mostly enjoyable journey to the border of Austria and to Innsbruck where our American friend left us. 

The scenery reminded me so much of my first trip to Europe on my own in 2006. The little balconies on wooden houses all along the mountain sides and the increasingly mountainous peeks reaching into the clouds and beyond. Near the Italian border you could see the snow capped peaks of the Alps and the bright blue glacial waters in the valleys. We also glimpsed quite a few castles along the way. Our carriage emptied out in Bolzano and we got two new seat mates for the remainder of the seven hour journey to Venice. The last portion of the trip, laterally across the width of Italy, had very different scenery. Less alpine scenes and more wine vineyards, tiled orange roofs and drier landscapes. For the finally leg our train went right across the water on a bridge made especially for the trains, right into Venice!

From the train station you walk right out on the canal front. It’s a beautiful train station. From the station we walked 20 minutes to our accommodation on a smaller and less touristy island. We arrived in our little alley between two canals, five minutes before 3pm. A lady ran up to the door with a young girl at exactly 3pm. We went through a heavy wooden door with the knob in the middle and up another two flights of stone steps. The main room was pretty spacious with wooden beams (low ceilings) and tiled floors, a couch and a kitchen with a little dinner table. The second room was a bedroom with a black and red tiled bathroom and a bright red stool for washing on (as the shower head was only two feet from the floor). We also immediately found out the wifi didn’t work. The lady told me I had to contact the host on booking dot com to get it fixed (I contacted them and they told me they would be there in five minutes and they never showed up even three days later). Thankfully I had a small amount of data so we could buy boat tickets to the airport and check into our flight later on. 

After getting unpacked we wandered around our immediate neighbourhood taking endless photos and videos. The canals and bridges are so similar yet so picture perfect, we found ourselves taking so many different yet identical photos. 

We stopped at a lovely little cafe where we each got a 5 euro glass of wine and shared a pizza with tuna, olives and cheese. It was called “Olive Tono”. The bill was only 25 euros. 

We then visited a gorgeous grocery store close to our place that was an old theatre made into a grocery store. The original frescos lined the walls and ceiling and there was a stage down one end where the deli was. We got some bread, brie, 2.99 wine, tomatoes (you have to weigh yourself) and some hummus, all for breakfast the following morning. 

We then went back to our place to drop off the groceries and open our bottle of wine with possibly the world’s largest bottle opener (we had trouble finding it, as it was stored in the FIREPLACE, what a weird accommodation). 

We then went to the canal right by our accommodation and sat along the water where we shared the bottle of wine as the sun set in glorious pink hues. Our neighbourhood felt quite local, but the waterside pub scene on a Saturday night was bumping with locals and tourist alike, letting loose!