OUR LIFE: Europe-Venice- Part 5

Saturday morning wake up at 9:00am and time to get ready to leave Lafoce. Quick breakfast in our kitchen and then out the door. We spent an extra hour with the puppies and spoke to Benadetta's granddaughter. On the road Emma felt sick and needed to vomit because of the motion sickness. We pressed on as she ate pretzel sticks along with plenty of snacks in the car. The kids used their itouches while I drove to Firenze and then to Bologna though some hilly terrain and through numerous mountain tunnels. Finally onto Venezia and Jocelyn did a nice job of determining the best parking garage. We parked and jump on the boat with our consolidated luggage cruised into Venezia. The boat ride to the Rialto bridge was really interesting and it is amazing to tour Venezia because it is a living museum. Upon disembarking we wandered for 20 minutes until we found our hotel. The receptionist buzzes you in and you walk up almost 70 stairs for check in. We reserved an apartment 2 doors down from the hotel on a residential street. The apartment was spacious with 1 bedroom and 3 beds along with a kitchen, bathroom with the butt washer as Henry calls it. We dropped off our stuff and marched outside to tour the city. Of course Henry found plenty of souvenirs so we managed expectations. We hoped on the boat for a ride to San Marco and then over to Academia Bridge for dinner. Simple dinner and certainly not Tuscana, but entertaining with the birds swooping in periodically. We deiced to find Grom and started walking and thankfully we did find it eating our required daily gelato. Enjoyed walking back to the hotel through numerous streets and several British girls joined us looking for the their hotel as well. Thankfully we finally found our hotel after a lengthy but enjoyable walk through Venedig. We decided to stop in a restaurant to watch the US World Cup Soccer match. We ordered some drinks and unfortunately watch them lose. Up to the hotel room and off to bed probably around midnight.

Sunday morning woke up after a good nights rest and off the breakfast. Nice breakfast at the hotel and Jocelyn was able to use he wifi connection. We decided to some shopping and found some interesting items. Lunch break was nice and then off for a boat ride. We road the boat for 2 hours all around especially nice because of the ocean breezes at the stern of the boat. Back to the hotel room and we checked wifi and heard at Max was doing just fine that made us feel good. Off to dinner that we enjoyed, but we were ready to leave.

Monday morning and after a good nights sleep we enjoyed our breakfast. A few last minute shopping ideas and then the boat to the parking garage. At the parking garage Jocelyn decided she wanted a diet coke so 5 E in the machine and still no soda time to move on. The drive from Venedig to Tegernsee was approximately 4 hours. Venedig to Trento was not very scenic and crowed with trucks into Milano. Once we hit Trento and the Dolomite mountains the scenery became interesting. The cities in Tirol, Trento, Bozen and Bixen seemed big and appear to offer no reason to stop so we continued driving. Finally we made a stop close to the Brenner Pass for gas, bathroom and snacks. Into Austria and beautiful mountains through Innsbruck also like a Big city. Off the highway onto to the back roads in Tegernsee.

Our hotel in Venice.... we didn't even realize that this was our hotel in this picture. We walked around for quite some time before realizing it.

Emma and Henry by the water.

St. Mark's Square. This picture makes me laugh....Henry and Emma had posed for every picture that I had asked them to throughout this entire trip. They were both not happy about standing in the pigeon infested square but they did it to make me happy. As I took this picture a pigeon flew right at them and they both "hit the deck." I was in hysterics!!!!