Venice - Paddling Away in the Canals
Venice was beautiful, but also at times we found could be a bit overwhelming. We took a night train from Naples, two hours south of Rome, all the way up to Venice, which is in the northeast of Italy. It was a long trip, from 8PM to 5:30 AM. We had reserved couchettes, or fold down beds, so that we could sleep on the train. Despite what we had thought, it was pretty hard to sleep on the train. It had frequent stops, swayed, and was louder than expected. Since we were in a four bed compartment, we were also joined at about 12:30 AM by a confused Italian girl. Getting to Venice at 5:30 AM with not to much sleep, we struggled a bit to find the correct water bus to our hotel. One we arrived, after climbing the 3 flights of stairs to reception, we were graciously allowed us to drop our things off for the day, since check in wasn't until the afternoon. They also allowed us to freshen up, since we had been on the go since leaving ome the day before. Our first impression of Venice was that ...