No worries, we're home in Rotterdam safely! We made it home yesterday afternoon, after three days of struggling our way through a continent covered in snow, with the train network being mostly out of order.
But let's not get ahead of ourselves.
Wednesdaynight we left Patras by ferry, and began our 36 hour boatride to Venice. A welcome lull in our so far busy trip, which we mostly spend reading, napping, playing cards and staring at the water. And then the outline of Venice appeared on the horizon! Sailing into its port, we got our first impression of this city with canals for its streets. It's beautiful. Real beautiful.
And thus began a day of being lost in Venice. Which is to say that we accurately navigated all of Venice, there is just no way to navigate in venice without being totally lost. Which is fine, because all of Venice is gorgeous. The only way to know where you are is to be on the water. Gondola rides turned out to be somewhat beyond our budget, but Venice's public transportation system happens to operate on the same canals. As it turns out, the easiest way to reach our hostel was by a 30 minute boatride on the Vaporetti no. 1 (ie. the waterbus) along the Canal Grande. We right there resolved to one day live in Venice. The search for a Venetion rowing club has begun.
Our hotel here was by far the best we've stayed at during our trip. Not only were they one of the cheapest, they also offered a suprise awesome complementary breakfast, including croissants and Nutella. At this point we started contemplating never leaving Venice again.
And we came dangerously close to realizing that dream, since by then it had already been snowing all night, and by now the water levels has risen sufficiently to put most of Venice underwater. It immediately became clear who were Venetians and who were not, because the Venetians had all pulled out their pairs of emergency galoshes. We are not Venetians. Therefore, we are currently still in the process of tryong to dry our shoes. The only way to reach the trainstation frequently included wading through water well above our ankles. (Epic fail of the day: a flooded cafe, with a 'caution, wet floor' sign staning in about 6 inches of water). But we got there, only to find out that all of Europe had given up on train transportation. It would be the beginning of a long day in the Venice railway station, with very little knowing-what-was-going-on, and very much confused.
Although our plan was to reach Paris that night, we only made it as far as Milan. After saying goodbye to our friends-made-through-shared-misery: 18 Australian high school girls and their three teachers, we had to face reality: we were stranded here for the night and were probably never going to make it to Paris. Sad. But not the end of our adventures.
To be continued...
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