Bon Jeeerno
Today was another travel day. Up early to our anticipated "brown egg" breakfast. Was really nice as usual, croissants with jelly, hard boiled brown eggs (in sand), and COFFEE!!! Only ONE little surprise this morning. I tried the bulk jam as usual but without my glasses I saw the small containers of jam or jelly in the basket, one of which was purple or blue in color and decided it must be either boysenberry or grape, so into my dish it went. I had my first croissant with the strawberry, cracked my egg and carefully salted and peppered it...savored the coffee with the egg, little orange juice and prepared the next croissant for the arrival of m-m-good boysenberry jam. I opened the container and it seemed to be mixed with cream cheese...fine. I mentioned it looked a bit different than I expected, but what the heck, after all we were in Vienna.
I carefully buttered my croissant and spread the anticipated delicious jam on my roll. The first taste brought a response of surprise and wonderment....what was this, on with the glasses and what to my surprise in place of boysenberry jam was "LIVER PATE"!!!!! Not bad, but just not expected.
Oh well, now it was off to see when the internet cafe opened....noon, too late to do us any good because we were of the impression our train left at 1300, so forget the net connection and blog uploads. Now it was time to search for the grocery store to pick up supplies for our 9 hour train ride to Venice. Off to Kohler....hmmm, closed on Sunday. Down the street to the other...same thing, closed on Sunday. We were finding most everything was closed on Sunday, so it was back to the hotel to prepare for departure to the train station. We gathered our stuff, caught the elevator and completed our check out and asked directions for a cab.
A couple of blocks later we finally found a taxi stand and were off to Suedbanhof for our 1pm train. Not knowing which track our train left on we chose to go to the upstairs waiting room. We watched and watched for our 1308 departure to be posted....nothing. Finally I saw the arrival from Venice with an ETA of 1354, almost an hour after the scheduled departure. Once the arrival posted I went to track 16 to see if any more information was available...sure nuff there was our train on the board with a departure time of 1530, over two hours later than we had planned. Oh well, we decided to have a a 'kebab' while waiting.
As soon as the train arrived I checked out all the cars...we were booked 1st class, but all the cars were the same...what was the difference? Still don't know, but we did have the compartment to ourselves all the way from Vienna to Venice. The scenery was absolutly beautiful, all the small Austrian villages going by the window, the mountains and streams, lush green valleys that all looked as though they had been freshly mown and manicured. Was a really nice trip and we arrived in Venice right on time.
We grabed our bags and headed out of the station having NO idea what to do. Once outside there were lines of people at a couple of kiosks that led to boats, but I was sure we were supposed to take a water taxi. There was a woman there that heard us inquire about San Marcos square and said she was going to the same place, did we know how to get there....NO!!
I saw what I believed to be water taxi drivers and inquired about getting to San Marcos.....70 euro replied the drunk!!! Well I don't care if had been free, I wasn't getting out on the water with him!!
I went to the guy running the deli.."How do I get to San Marcos?" He said cross that bridge and keep walking....well that didn't appeal, so I went to the guy running the pizza place. How do I get to San Marcos?". Take the boat he said. "Which one?"....any he replied. So off to the ticket window. We were now 4th in line and they closed the shades and locked the door....we just stood there. Finally I said let's just get on the dam boat, which we did. I found a couple sitting on the back and said "do you speak english". "Si"!! How to I get to San Marcos I asked.....a blank stare and a shrug of the shoulders, so we just found a seat and settled in for the ride.
Shortly here comes the captain asking for tickets...which of course we didn't have, but told him we were looking for San Marcos.....fine, no problem. Five euro each, so we remained in our seat and were slowly beginning to figure out the "water bus" system. We got off at the San Marcos stop, now to figure out which way to walk...after asking for directions from a couple of different people we finally did find Hote Bridge.
Once there the guy at the desk said "we have a problem, we were never able to contact you for confirmation so the ONLY room we have left is without a bathroom...the ONLY room in the hotel without a bathroom. Would you like to look at it?" So I did take a tour of the room and the bathroom. He assured us the ONLY other people using the bathroom were his employees first thing in the morning. Since it was midnight we didnt' have much choice so I agreed to take the room and take my chances tomorrow morning. I hope by the time I get to post this I'll have pics of the room for you.
After this long day I decided a nice cold beer from the fridge in the room would be nice....WRONG, the fridge wasn't working. Well enough was enough, I stomped downstairs and told the desk clerk our fridge was not working...and did he have any ice. Nope sorry, no ice, maybe he could bring us a couple of drinks and I said sure, a couple of beers and a coke. About 20 minutes later he showed up at the door with four beers and 2 cokes. That concluded our trip from Vienna and our welcome to Venice. Will update you on our first day in Venice tomorrow.
I carefully buttered my croissant and spread the anticipated delicious jam on my roll. The first taste brought a response of surprise and wonderment....what was this, on with the glasses and what to my surprise in place of boysenberry jam was "LIVER PATE"!!!!! Not bad, but just not expected.
Oh well, now it was off to see when the internet cafe opened....noon, too late to do us any good because we were of the impression our train left at 1300, so forget the net connection and blog uploads. Now it was time to search for the grocery store to pick up supplies for our 9 hour train ride to Venice. Off to Kohler....hmmm, closed on Sunday. Down the street to the other...same thing, closed on Sunday. We were finding most everything was closed on Sunday, so it was back to the hotel to prepare for departure to the train station. We gathered our stuff, caught the elevator and completed our check out and asked directions for a cab.
A couple of blocks later we finally found a taxi stand and were off to Suedbanhof for our 1pm train. Not knowing which track our train left on we chose to go to the upstairs waiting room. We watched and watched for our 1308 departure to be posted....nothing. Finally I saw the arrival from Venice with an ETA of 1354, almost an hour after the scheduled departure. Once the arrival posted I went to track 16 to see if any more information was available...sure nuff there was our train on the board with a departure time of 1530, over two hours later than we had planned. Oh well, we decided to have a a 'kebab' while waiting.
As soon as the train arrived I checked out all the cars...we were booked 1st class, but all the cars were the same...what was the difference? Still don't know, but we did have the compartment to ourselves all the way from Vienna to Venice. The scenery was absolutly beautiful, all the small Austrian villages going by the window, the mountains and streams, lush green valleys that all looked as though they had been freshly mown and manicured. Was a really nice trip and we arrived in Venice right on time.We grabed our bags and headed out of the station having NO idea what to do. Once outside there were lines of people at a couple of kiosks that led to boats, but I was sure we were supposed to take a water taxi. There was a woman there that heard us inquire about San Marcos square and said she was going to the same place, did we know how to get there....NO!!
I saw what I believed to be water taxi drivers and inquired about getting to San Marcos.....70 euro replied the drunk!!! Well I don't care if had been free, I wasn't getting out on the water with him!!
I went to the guy running the deli.."How do I get to San Marcos?" He said cross that bridge and keep walking....well that didn't appeal, so I went to the guy running the pizza place. How do I get to San Marcos?". Take the boat he said. "Which one?"....any he replied. So off to the ticket window. We were now 4th in line and they closed the shades and locked the door....we just stood there. Finally I said let's just get on the dam boat, which we did. I found a couple sitting on the back and said "do you speak english". "Si"!! How to I get to San Marcos I asked.....a blank stare and a shrug of the shoulders, so we just found a seat and settled in for the ride.
Shortly here comes the captain asking for tickets...which of course we didn't have, but told him we were looking for San Marcos.....fine, no problem. Five euro each, so we remained in our seat and were slowly beginning to figure out the "water bus" system. We got off at the San Marcos stop, now to figure out which way to walk...after asking for directions from a couple of different people we finally did find Hote Bridge.
Once there the guy at the desk said "we have a problem, we were never able to contact you for confirmation so the ONLY room we have left is without a bathroom...the ONLY room in the hotel without a bathroom. Would you like to look at it?" So I did take a tour of the room and the bathroom. He assured us the ONLY other people using the bathroom were his employees first thing in the morning. Since it was midnight we didnt' have much choice so I agreed to take the room and take my chances tomorrow morning. I hope by the time I get to post this I'll have pics of the room for you.
After this long day I decided a nice cold beer from the fridge in the room would be nice....WRONG, the fridge wasn't working. Well enough was enough, I stomped downstairs and told the desk clerk our fridge was not working...and did he have any ice. Nope sorry, no ice, maybe he could bring us a couple of drinks and I said sure, a couple of beers and a coke. About 20 minutes later he showed up at the door with four beers and 2 cokes. That concluded our trip from Vienna and our welcome to Venice. Will update you on our first day in Venice tomorrow.
posted by dfwjeep42 | 3:28 AM
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