Water World

Saturday May 12.  We were on three trains today making our way from the Cinque Terra through Florance to Venice.  The Lord was willing that we made every connection without any major disruptions.  We have a deal with the girls, while in transit, they can watch one minute of video on the iPod for every minute they read a book on the kindle.

It is crazy how technically wired we are these days.  We are packing - 2 cameras (one is already broken), 2 iPads, 2 Kindles, 2 iPod nanos with audio tours, 1 iPod click with movies, 1 iPod touch with translator apps, 1 GPS with EU maps.  A decade ago when last Patti and I traveled abroad (apart from my work trips) we (she) carried only a hair dryer and curling iron.  Of course these are taking the place of any books we would carry, blah blah, justify, rationalize, etc. etc. My Dad, when he reads this will say, he who lives by technology dies by technology.  I brought back up charges and adapters to ensure that the first deaths were not all my batteries.

The third train that we were on today was the most luxurious that we have been on, the Eurostar.  The bathrooms were nice and necessary for me on this leg.  It operated much like the bathroom on a plane except the water and air drying distribution were controlled by a button and rationed out accordingly (read, a little water and a little air).  I found the soap, which was served buffet style and then went for the water, but the water was the hand dryer.  That made it clear to me which button was the water.  So, when my hands were nice and clean, then the dryer quit and would not start again.  I suspect this is a deterrent to bathroom bathers.  The next train we are on is an overnight to Austria we will see how that goes.

We arrived in Venice and purchased a 48 hour water taxi pass for each of us so we could motor around on the Grand Canal at will.  We hopped off at the Giglio (not Gigolo) stop and found ourselves in a 'street' that was about the width of two people.  That opened into a piazza about the size of a raquetball court.  What a difference from Rome where you could usually fit at least two tiny cars down each alley and the piazzas could hold a football field or two.

Once again we were able to find the only supermarket within 10km (by the Rialto Bridge) and my kids love to shop, especially for food.

We purchased the largest chocolate bar the kids had every seen (really not that big, but they lead sheltered cany lives). This one has 4497 kilo joules of energy, these kids will be pumped up!!

You can see our Venice Pics by using the link navigation on the right of the page.