Catch Up - Friday 5th September

Dan thought he could probably lead us around Venice with his knowledge of the Assassin's Creed map. Dan was wrong. We got lost within the first couple of hours of being there, and it didn't help that our map had no road names and those that did had no road signs to help. In Venice, every street is a backstreet, and some paths lead straight into the canal. Dead ends give no notice. We made our circuitous way to San Marco, pausing to look at the water, the old-world buildings, and sparkling jewellery in shop windows.

After all the claustrophobia-inducing, narrow alleys of Venice, Piazza San Marco's vast open space was a surprise. On one side, the basilica towered over a long queue of people waiting to go in. Shops lined two sides, and one corner of the square led to the sea.

We had a little sit-down in the shade, and Lucy, Dan and Mitch bought some gelato ice cream from a kiosk in a restaurant. We looked in the windows of all the shops along the perimeter, admiring the expensive Murano glass ornaments. By this point Lucy, of course, needed a wee but refused to pay for the public toilets so we bought our entrance to the Doge's Apartments where there were loos. We then made our way around the tour route, through gilded rooms with dark carved ceilings with paintings on the walls. We saw portraits of doges; globes; maps; furniture; a range of weaponry; and the dungeon prisons, accessed via the Bridge of Sighs. We were there for some time, and although we'd planned to go back and cook at the campsite, we ended up eating in the centre. We picked a little restaurant, which was not that great and charged us a bomb for bread and drinks.  

Done eating, we took a promenade along the waterfront and then got our bus back to the chalet.

Catch Up - Thursday 4th September

The only train combination which could get us from Vienna to Venice was an eleven hour journey, so it was up at six for our first train. We bought breakfast at the train station and got a train to Innsbruck through mountaineous scenery punctuated with bright blue and green rivers, and traditional Austrian log chalets.

The InterRail app confused us a lot regarding our next stop, Brennero Brenner. It seemed to be telling us the station was in both Austria and Italy. The confused cleared when we realised it was exactly that - the border ran through the station. We bought lunch here, boarding another train to Verona, from where we changed for Verona. It was incredibly tiring, and when we checked in to our chalet at the campsite (not as big as it sounds, but fairly comfy), we just ate at the site restaurant and went to bed.

Catch Up - Wednesday 3rd September

Our aim for this day was to see as much of the city centre as possible. We caught a metro to the centre, and got on a tram which follows the Ringstraße. Far more scenic than Bristol's ring road, this circular route incorporates some of Vienna's finest buildings into one journey (or two, as there is a tram change in the middle). Having finished the trip, we got off and went to look at the outside of the Parliament building. Like many state buildings we've seen, it was neo-classical, with great white columns and a statue of Lady Liberty outside on a fountain. Next to this was the Rathaus, the city hall, which we mistook for a church, not yet used to the fact that in mainland Europe, there are spires on all sorts of buildings. A ridiculous number of sights we've seen have been undergoing restoration work and thus covered in scaffolding, and the Rauthaus (and, later this day, the Votive Church, the Stefansdom Cathedral and St. Peter's Church) was no exception. We saw what we could of it, then popped inside the Votive Church next door.

We walked in the direction of a clock in the centre which is famous for its hourly show. We arrived just in time for the midday spectacle - twelve famous figures walked past the clock face, each with a different organ theme. This took about twelve minutes, and by the end we were well ready for lunch.

We had initially intended to buy sandwiches from a well-known sandwich shop, but we had failed to check the size of the sandwiches. Upon discovering they were finger food, we found a sit-down Italian (yes, again) restaurant where we ate lunch.

Stefansdom Cathedral was just around the corner, so we wandered there and had a peek inside. Far more impressive, but much smaller, was St. Peter's Church around the corner. A very similar style to St. James' Church, this rounded building was full of sculptures, and someone was playing the organ. We thoroughly enjoyed it!

Having walked the short distance to the Hofburg Imperial apartments, we went round the Imperial Treasury, looking at the Austrian Crown Jewels and admiring the embellished jewellery and robes.

We'd researched proper Viennese coffee houses so at 3pm we went to Café Central. We ordered Viennese-style desserts (apple strudel with custard for Mitch and Dan, and chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream for Lucy and Siân) and hot drinks (hot chocolate for Dan, and Viennese-style coffee for the other three). The walls and floor were marble, and there were imperial portraits on the wall. A hot drink and a cake cost us roughly €11 each, but it was worth it.

We'd read in our guide about a clock museum showcasing 4,000 clocks, but on our way there we passed a sign reading "ESPERANTOMUSEUM | GLOBEMUSEUM | PAPYRUSMUSEUM" (for those of you whose German isn't as good as ours, that roughly translates as "ESPERANTO MUSEUM | GLOBE MUSEUM | PAPYRUS MUSEUM"). Intrigued, we looked inside and were absolutely thrilled to discover it was free for under nineteens. The woman on Reception squinted at Siân's ID, seeing as she's almost nineteen. Or maybe it was just surprise that hip youths like us wanted to look at globes and paper.

The Esperanto Museum was amusing, and the Globe Museum, as Dan said, was out of this world. These museums took up a floor of a building each, but, to our great dismay, we couldn't find the Papyrus Museum. We asked the receptionist for directions, and, following them badly, we ended up in a high, painted-ceilinged library with beautiful bookshelves and displays of manuscripts. After we'd recovered from our disappointment at the lack of papyrus, we realised how lovely the décor was. We looked around a bit, and got some more directions for the Papyrus Museum.

"You'll have to hurry though," the security guard warned, "it closes at six."

So hurry we did. In our desperation to see the papyrus, Lucy and Siân even resorted to running. Thankfully, we made it in time. Whilst we were getting our breath back the ticket guard marched up to us, stern-faced. We showed him our tickets, and he smiled and handed us a small sample of papyrus each. We looked round the exhibit, then took a walk to St. Charles' Church before getting a metro back to the hostel. We'd left it too late to buy food in the supermarket, so we got takeaway Chinese.  

We went back to the hostel to relax, and Siân went to jump up onto her bunk. Unfortunately, she misjudged it, smacking her knee on the wood and ending up with an almighty bruise.