I went to Venice to meet my friend Heather, who is studying in Perugia, for the weekend. We figured Venice is at about the half-way point. Venice is only about 7 hours drive from Vienna, but the night train goes west to Salzburg to pick up more passengers, then goes south to Venice. The whole journey was about 12 hours. But I was happily sleeping for 9 of those hours.
For the first 4 hours on the way to Salzburg, I had the whole compartment to myself. The other 2 passengers were getting on at Salzburg. This meant I got the bed that was not 10 feet up in the air. The beds were stacked 3 high. In my 4 hours of solitude I got to pick out my free breakfast for the next morning and plan my future world travels with my "1000 Things to see before you die" book. You know, for when I am super rich and can afford a $5000 14 day camel trek in Tunisia.
I was awoken at half past midnight by every traveler's worst nightmare: The ugly American. Except this was 3 ugly Americans. Three loud, middle aged gal pals, who made no effort to be quiet at all. And loudly complain that this arrangement was "not what they ordered." Apparently one of the three was assigned to a different place in the train. The situation was immediately and dramatically deemed a "crisis," "nightmare," and a "we're-never-doing-this-again" kind of experience. And they likened it to being in a prison. And to think I had been marveling at the ability to be horizontal, with a pillow, duvet, sheets, and breakfast in the morning. I am personally a huge fan of this mode of transport, if I could take the night train everywhere, I totally would.
Finally the loudest lady proclaimed she was going to do some shots of Schapps and take some Tylenol PM. Thank God.
The next morning, I did not worry about being too loud. They were overjoyed that I spoke English and peppered me with questions about my life and such.
And then the best part: I walked out of the train station and I was in Venice. And Heather was there, and it was sunny and gorgeous. We mostly roamed the streets and got lost, which is an activity in it's self.
Venice was like a fairytale city. There were no cars, only boats. We would wander through the alleyways and come across dozens of serene canals, with gondolas bobbing up and down and laundry hanging out the window. We went to Lido Island to go see the beach, and the Adriatic Sea of course. It wasn't the prettiest beach, but I have missed my large bodies of water being land-locked for so long.
We went into the Basilica and toured the opera houses, Teatro La Fenice, which was beautiful. But mostly we wandered, and ate.
