Y3W27 - Venezia & Berlin
I really thought on Sunday that the two trips we had planned this week would 
not happen. I felt so crummy. However, by Wednesday, I was feeling up to travel. Greg and I flew (by ourselves) to Venice for a late Anniversary present to each other. We had that evening and the whole next day to experience Venice. What an absolutely charming place! We walked to our very tiny hotel right around the corner from San Marco Piazzale. There was a bit of mist in the air which made it all the more enchanting. We took several night photos and felt very lucky that we avoided the crowds. We dined at a very small cafe (about four or five tables) just down from our hotel. It was great food and a really nice start to our overnighter alone. Did I mention we were by ourselves? We turned in fairly early as I was still not feeling perfect so we could get an early start.
Everyone told us that Venice is the best if you get to see it before the crowds show up. By 7:30am, we were out and about. Very few tourists, only local people going to work. I wanted to do an early morning gondola ride but the gondola guys weren't even out yet. Apparently if you want a ride that early, you need to arrange it the day before. We went back to the hotel to have breakfast that was delivered to our room at 9:00am. We planned our day and away we went. We went to the bell tower at San Marco Piazzale first to get a view of the square and the canals. San Marco cathedral was very cool but dark. It was a stark contrast to St. Peter's in Rome after having just been there. We walked all through the city, saw the fruit boat, the famous fish market, trying to take it all in. We needed a rest.
Greg suggested that we go to the Gallery d'Accademia. At least we would be able to check our bags and have a bit of a rest. We found out when we got there that the famous Leonardo de Vinci Vetruvian Man drawing was on exhibit. What a lucky find. We stayed there a while looking at the drawing and checking out the rest of the works. We did a tiny bit of shopping, some souvenirs for the girls and a small Christmas present for me. We had our usual gelato (only one this trip). After which we did more walking. It is an amazing city to just walk around. So quaint having to walk up and down bridges constantly that go over all of the many canals. It really is so unique.
We had a sit down in a chocolate shop and grabbed a couple hot chocolates and some local cookies. I will miss that about Europe. It is perfectly acceptable to have a sit down at a cafe, have a couple of drinks and stay as long as you like. In the states, I'm sure we would have been given the "can you move so we can free up the table?" type look. After we had covered most of the city on foot, we decided to take a water taxi. We had to do something on the water in Venice. We found a chic restaurant with a younger looking crowd, yes we can still fit in in this crowd, where we dined at a very relaxed pace (alone) and had a very thick liquid hot chocolate for dessert. After dinner it was time to make our way back to the bus station to catch our bus for the airport. Unfortunately, there was a technical problem with our plane which made our expected midnight arrival in Bonn a bit later (3:30am). This was definitely a change to the way we normally spend Thanksgiving day but there were a ton of Americans in Venice that day, and we all seemed to be having the same "Thankful" sentiments. It was as if we were all communicating it nonverbally.
Friday morning came very early. Greg had made up his mind that we were doing Thanksgiving dinner on friday. So we all got up and started cooking. We cooked all day, had a wonderful dinner, and by 7:00pm my mom and I were on the train to Berlin. Talk about a whirlwind kind of week. Wow. Sorry no time for Thanksgiving pics this year.
We arrived in Berlin shortly after midnight and our hotel was literally right outside the train station. We began our berliner adventure with the Reichstag. My mom made it clear that that was the one thing she wanted to do so we waited the hour and a half or so to get into the building. It certainly is worth it for the view and the information. We hit the Brandberg Gate and the Holocaust memorial on our way to Potsdamer Platz, checked out the Christmas market there for a bit. We decided to grab lunch at a really cool authentic German restaurant called Lutter und Wegner. We had Sauerbraten und rotkohl (red cabbage). Really delicious. we continued walking until we reached the Topography of Terror and finally Checkpoint Charlie. We spent a bit of time here as it is a fascinating museum. On our walk back, we decided to hit the Christmas market in the Gendarmenmarkt area which is right in front of the Opera house. It was really neat to see the energy of the Christmas markets. We wanted to see the Brandenberg Gate lit up at night so we walked along the Unter den Linden until we ran into it.
We headed back to the hotel feeling like we had accomplished quite a bit in one day. We had a bit of trouble trying to decide what to do with our second day in Berlin. Should we go to Wittenberg? Should we go to Pergamon Museum (one of my favorites)? My mom let me sleep in too late and at long last during breakfast, we decided that we would just hang out in Berlin and try to see some more of the city. We started in the same general direction but managed to find Hitler's bunker where he spent the final days of his life. It is essentially just a sign that marks the spot but it is a bit out of the way and I was feeling proud that we found it.
Next, we walked to the Benderblock building where we saw the Stauffenberg memorial (if you've seen the movie Valkyrie, Tom Cruise played Stauffenberg). Almost more interesting than the courtyard of the Benderblock was a building down the street that clearly had many, many bullet holes in the facade. We made our way to the Kaiser Wilhelm Kirche, which is basically one tower that survived the war. I'm really glad we saw this church. They had pictures inside of the church from 1919 until present day. It was interesting to see the changes in the building, the roads, the city. Amazing chunk of history. There happened to be another Christmas market right outside the church so of course we had to check it out. We did a bit of shopping along the Ku'damm when we thought we had better make our way back to the train station, collect our stored luggage, grab a sandwich for the train, and get to our correct platform. It was a great weekend. I'm so glad I had the chance to take my mom and show her a city that she had always wanted to see.
We made our train with no problem but couldn't find the car where our seats had been reserved. After standing in the hall of the train trying to make our way through a hundred people to get to car ten. Someone told us there wasn't a car ten. That's the reason for the gridlock of people trying to make their way through the train cars. While we didn't want to try and go back through all of the people, I asked if we could just sit in first class until the aisles cleared. We ended up being able to stay in 1st class all the way to Cologne. Brilliant. We arrived home around 11:30pm. One of these days I really need to catch up on all of this sleep.
not happen. I felt so crummy. However, by Wednesday, I was feeling up to travel. Greg and I flew (by ourselves) to Venice for a late Anniversary present to each other. We had that evening and the whole next day to experience Venice. What an absolutely charming place! We walked to our very tiny hotel right around the corner from San Marco Piazzale. There was a bit of mist in the air which made it all the more enchanting. We took several night photos and felt very lucky that we avoided the crowds. We dined at a very small cafe (about four or five tables) just down from our hotel. It was great food and a really nice start to our overnighter alone. Did I mention we were by ourselves? We turned in fairly early as I was still not feeling perfect so we could get an early start.
Everyone told us that Venice is the best if you get to see it before the crowds show up. By 7:30am, we were out and about. Very few tourists, only local people going to work. I wanted to do an early morning gondola ride but the gondola guys weren't even out yet. Apparently if you want a ride that early, you need to arrange it the day before. We went back to the hotel to have breakfast that was delivered to our room at 9:00am. We planned our day and away we went. We went to the bell tower at San Marco Piazzale first to get a view of the square and the canals. San Marco cathedral was very cool but dark. It was a stark contrast to St. Peter's in Rome after having just been there. We walked all through the city, saw the fruit boat, the famous fish market, trying to take it all in. We needed a rest.
Greg suggested that we go to the Gallery d'Accademia. At least we would be able to check our bags and have a bit of a rest. We found out when we got there that the famous Leonardo de Vinci Vetruvian Man drawing was on exhibit. What a lucky find. We stayed there a while looking at the drawing and checking out the rest of the works. We did a tiny bit of shopping, some souvenirs for the girls and a small Christmas present for me. We had our usual gelato (only one this trip). After which we did more walking. It is an amazing city to just walk around. So quaint having to walk up and down bridges constantly that go over all of the many canals. It really is so unique.
Friday morning came very early. Greg had made up his mind that we were doing Thanksgiving dinner on friday. So we all got up and started cooking. We cooked all day, had a wonderful dinner, and by 7:00pm my mom and I were on the train to Berlin. Talk about a whirlwind kind of week. Wow. Sorry no time for Thanksgiving pics this year.
We arrived in Berlin shortly after midnight and our hotel was literally right outside the train station. We began our berliner adventure with the Reichstag. My mom made it clear that that was the one thing she wanted to do so we waited the hour and a half or so to get into the building. It certainly is worth it for the view and the information. We hit the Brandberg Gate and the Holocaust memorial on our way to Potsdamer Platz, checked out the Christmas market there for a bit. We decided to grab lunch at a really cool authentic German restaurant called Lutter und Wegner. We had Sauerbraten und rotkohl (red cabbage). Really delicious. we continued walking until we reached the Topography of Terror and finally Checkpoint Charlie. We spent a bit of time here as it is a fascinating museum. On our walk back, we decided to hit the Christmas market in the Gendarmenmarkt area which is right in front of the Opera house. It was really neat to see the energy of the Christmas markets. We wanted to see the Brandenberg Gate lit up at night so we walked along the Unter den Linden until we ran into it.
We headed back to the hotel feeling like we had accomplished quite a bit in one day. We had a bit of trouble trying to decide what to do with our second day in Berlin. Should we go to Wittenberg? Should we go to Pergamon Museum (one of my favorites)? My mom let me sleep in too late and at long last during breakfast, we decided that we would just hang out in Berlin and try to see some more of the city. We started in the same general direction but managed to find Hitler's bunker where he spent the final days of his life. It is essentially just a sign that marks the spot but it is a bit out of the way and I was feeling proud that we found it.
Next, we walked to the Benderblock building where we saw the Stauffenberg memorial (if you've seen the movie Valkyrie, Tom Cruise played Stauffenberg). Almost more interesting than the courtyard of the Benderblock was a building down the street that clearly had many, many bullet holes in the facade. We made our way to the Kaiser Wilhelm Kirche, which is basically one tower that survived the war. I'm really glad we saw this church. They had pictures inside of the church from 1919 until present day. It was interesting to see the changes in the building, the roads, the city. Amazing chunk of history. There happened to be another Christmas market right outside the church so of course we had to check it out. We did a bit of shopping along the Ku'damm when we thought we had better make our way back to the train station, collect our stored luggage, grab a sandwich for the train, and get to our correct platform. It was a great weekend. I'm so glad I had the chance to take my mom and show her a city that she had always wanted to see.
We made our train with no problem but couldn't find the car where our seats had been reserved. After standing in the hall of the train trying to make our way through a hundred people to get to car ten. Someone told us there wasn't a car ten. That's the reason for the gridlock of people trying to make their way through the train cars. While we didn't want to try and go back through all of the people, I asked if we could just sit in first class until the aisles cleared. We ended up being able to stay in 1st class all the way to Cologne. Brilliant. We arrived home around 11:30pm. One of these days I really need to catch up on all of this sleep.
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