Day 18: Trains, Trains, and . . . Train-o-mobiles

Every day we travel it's goregous outside. Be nice if it was nice for the rest of the trip, but it was beautiful today and I'm not complaining. It is kind of funny, though. The train ride to Venice took like 7 hours with all the stops. 10:00 - 4:45. Long. We slept for some of the train ride. PLayed around for most of it. The following has made for a perfect travelling soundtrack, by the way. A soundtrack for our adventure:

* Ray LaMontagne
* Iron and Wine
* Owl City
* Passion Pit
* Pete Yorn
* John Mayer Trio (only the live stuff)
* Coheed
* Damien Rice

We arrived in Venice and stepped out into the most incredible, warm blue sky scene. The water wasn't near as dirty as I was expecting (expectations = bad!). And there weren't too many people. Not like Rome.

We dropped our stuff at the hotel. Conveniently close to the train station. We walked to the Rialto Bridge. At least, we tried to. I am 100% sure that everyone gets lost in Venice. It's impossible not to, and it's great when it happens. We ended up eating at a little cafe with all old Italian people. We finally got to Rialto, got gelato for the 19th and 20th times and got lost again on the way back to our hotel. Once we finally found our way, we kept going.

We walked through the Jewish Ghetto and found a very soft cat by an all boy's school on the waterfront. We fed and pet the cat as we listened to the boy's choir from underneath one of the windows. We took pictures of the magnificent sunset and finally headed back to Hotel Santa Lucia for the night.

All the rain and cold of the trip would have been worth the past two days alone. Glad there's more on the way. And I'm happy to note: Must remember sunblock tomorrow.

the view south, from the Rialto Bridge

the view north from the Rialto, blocked by a dude

jo's turn on the Rialto, right after gelato probably

two houses james bond didn't sink

this is why everyone gets lost. this is a street. not an alley.

another cool view

sunset from the northern tip of the main islands. our map actually says "best place for dramatic sunsets."

soft cat that likes ham. and jo, who also likes ham, but not as much as me.

cool sunset, glowing armpit. must be from radioactive i've-worn-this-same-stuff-for-the-past-17-days stink

beautiful

walked away from the crowds and found this all boy's school where a beautiful choir was singing