Bali Bound

More Venice, this is the bridge of sighs, basically it takes you from the old courthouse to the jail.  So it's called the bridge of sighs because that is the sound people supposedly made when crossing St Marks square, it's rainy so there isn't anyone out but later, when the sun came out, it was packed Part of the Doge's palace, it was fancy Part of St Marks Basilica, they had a lot of mosaics More canals and bridges, and this is our tour director, I didn't think she would be in the picture and she was much happier than this looks The glassblowers, this man made a fancy vase in about 2 minutes.  Amazing The Grand Canal Mosaic floor from St Marks, it's very fancy Gondola shot of the harbor Here is our pack of gondolas, that is Cindy with the musicians, we were the only group out with musicians, classy touch indeed The Matterhorn on the train up to the mountains Matterhorn from the top of Gornergrat, looki...

I must say, most of our traveling companions are starting to look a lot more tired. But honestly, it doesn't feel like its already been a week! We did have another bus day, however we will be moving onto train travel soon. I think that it should be a nice change. Although, our bus driver is entertaining. He's Italian and speaks five words of English. But his job is to drive and haul luggage so it's all good. But he has gotten us out of some tricky spots due to other drivers. Today he was especially important as we left Venice on our way to Zermatt Switzerland. We did have an early afternoon break in Stresa, along lovely lake Maggiore in the Italian lake district. We could have gone for a ride to one of the little islands but after awhile all the extras start to cost a lot so we took a break and wandered the street. And had more gelato. It's on every block in Italy!! The town was very lush and beautiful but a very expensive place to stay. All the hotels lo...

Oh Venice. I don't know entirely what to say about you. It feels sad to compare it to the las Vegas version but there is a little bit there. The entire island exists because the tourists want to go there. It's a strange place to wander what with the combination of tiny little alley ways, canals and bridges. It is also crazy busy. Even on a rainy morning. By the time we left there was 4 cruise ships. But we had a good day. We started out with taking a boat from the mainland to Venice. Also, did i mention that it was pouring rain and windy, it was cold, even for this tough Canadian girl. We did also get to visit the Doge's palace. It was the Venetian dukes palace. We did a guided tour and he gave us a lot of information. A lot of information. But it was ornate like every other palace we've seen. We made a little group with a few of our fellow travelers after the tour. We did have a bad learning experience with lunch but were happy to learn that at least ...

It has been both a laid back day and a busy day. Today we hit three countries in less than eight hours. Crazy times. We started out in Germany where we were woken up to a crazy rainstorm. We did have good timing and it was finished by the time we were off. We then made our way south through Austria. What a beautiful area it is. They call it the Tyrol and it is lush and mountainous. We had a mid-morning stop in Innsbruck. We had a bit of time to spend in the old town area. Sadly, the golden roof was covered for cleaning. I'll admit this is always the risk of traveling in the off times. Many areas have been nice and quiet but it does mean that this is the time of year that maintenance is done. But there was plenty other things to see and it was a nice spot for the morning. After our morning stop we made it through brenner pass into Italy on the way to Venice!! It was quite the drive. I understand why my travel agent thought I was a little bit nuts to do London-Pari...