Buon giorno!

After a long train ride from Munich, we have arrived in Venice, Italy.

There wasn’t much to today as we had a long ride, I just have a few things and I’ll post some pictures (finally have some reliable wifi)

Austria is neat – at least what you can see from the train.

The mountains are huge. We spent a long time training through a valley, a pass, surrounded by steep mountain walls on either side and paralleling a river (oh and tunnels). The River has an interesting gray/green quality that must be a result of the silt and minerals from the mountains.  I haven’t seen that color in a river since we were in Alaska.

I should mention the firewood. Houses everywhere, Austria and southern Germany apparently burn a lot of fires. Homes would have ricks and ricks of firewood outside their homes.

Shared a train with a New Zealand family – nice enough, bought Lisa a cup of coffee. Well, sort of.  They paid for it, but it was literally a half a cup – everyone in our compatment that got coffee had a 1/2 cup for 2 Euro – a little steep for a couple of ounces of coffee.  After the New Zealand family left, we were joined by a family from California.  They had two young teens.  Sorry – waste of money.

After living with metric system for a few days, I’m convinced more than ever it makes no sense.  Figure this out. Meter > Yard, but Kilometer < Mile. Hah – explain that one.  I did see one advantage. Gasoline is only 1.34 per (whatever it is they sell it in). We should go to quarts, sure makes it seem cheaper, even if it isn’t.

No wifi on the train was annoying – but, other than trying to keep this blog updated, it has been nice to be ‘disconnected’.

Okay – quick update on Venice.  Wow!  We’ve only been here a couple of hours but it is impressive.  Getting lost will be very easy  – VERY!  We will find out for sure tomorrow.  We did have a great meal, which was important.  The stupid train’s diner car was without electricity, so we went hungry.

Lisa had Soft Buffalo Mozzarella with cherry tomatoes and for dinner some Amberjack fish – looked like a shark steak, she loved it.  I had a home made pasta with scallions and pumpkin flowers, then had a course of some sort of fish with almonds and honey.  For someone who doesn’t like fish, I enjoyed it – all I’m saying.  Maybe my hunger helped.   We had a nice bottle of Italian wine (hey, when in Rome…)

Enough of that.  Tomorrow should be a crazy day in Vencie.  We have a sp0ecial dinner planned for tomorrow night.

Here are some pictures:

For those who doubted: Lisa enjoyed her beer and pretzel.

This is the Neuschwanstein Castle.  This picture was taken from one scary bridge.

This is Munich’s town center – town hall.  With the famous Rathaus-Glockenspiel:

The folks surfing in the park in Munich.  Bizarre.  Didn’t include the pictures Lisa took of the nude dudes…

My goulash made with ox:

The barmaid carry a bunch of beers:

The furnaces for burning dead bodies at Dachau:

A quick snapshot that doesn’t do justice the German countryside:

Our lunch at the cheese farm.  No idea why there isn’t cheese in this picture.  And, yes, more beer.  Beer was literally cheaper than water.

The statue of Jesus that have brought pilgrims since 1740.  Picture doesn’t do it justice.  I would suppose Jesus is near life size or larger in this photo: