Venezia

OK so after Budapest last weekend I decided to not sit around and wait for Christmas/something interesting to happen....but to make it happen myself. I decided that now would be a good time to go to Venice - before the flood season and carnival season so I spoke to Scott and we decided to go. As we were booking quite last minute, there wasn't much choice of accommodation and it was all quite a lot more expensive than Budapest - which tbf I expected.
So Friday morning we were up and at Graz Hbf for 7.15am. It was really disgusting wet and cold weather in Graz and the forecast was for rain in Venice. We arrived at Venezia Santa Lucia at 1.30pm to bright sunshine - no sign of rain at all...and that's how it stayed for the whole 3 days. It felt more like august than october a lot of the time although out of the sun it was quite cool.
After dropping bags off at our hotel, we decided to take a walk around our side of the island. I ended up buying a sketchbook and pencil (which seemed a good idea at the time) and we stopped along the way for icecream and a late lunch for which I had a med. veg rolled up pizza (Scott ordered a hamburger - original. not.)both by Zattere and then later on some dinner - I wasn't hungry but we found a nice restaurant in Campo Santa Margherita where Scott tried to order a Hawaiian pizza and the waiter looked horrified We then went across to Giudecca and San Giorgio Maggiore to see what was there, to have a better view of Venice as a whole and to see the sunset. Haha after lunch Scott posted some postcards he had written. He'd stamped and written them....but realised that (once he'd put them in the postbox) that he hadn't addressed them!!!!!! so he then had to go and buy some more!
Saturday morning we started early. We headed over to Murano - famous for its glass. We didn't go in the glass factory but we did look in the shops full of glass ornaments and have a bit of a wander around. We spent most of the rest of the day exploring the other side of the Grand Canal, visiting Ss. Giovanni e Paolo which was really beautiful and Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, sketching around a bit, getting lost down some of the more residential areas and eventually having dinner at the same place as the friday evening as it was really nice and pretty cheap too. I (predictably) had lasagne and it was pretty good.
Sunday started early again beginning at S. Marco which of course wasn't open as it was sunday. I suggested we went to the service there thus killing two birds with one stone and being able to go to church and get "free" entry into a building that is meant to be amazing. Anyway it didn't happen and we didn't go in later either which was a real shame. As well as sketching here, there and everywhere, eating icecream and breadrolls (cleverly smuggled into my bag at breakfast at the hotel with fillings too) we also headed down to Sant'Elena to have a look around that area. There is a lot of greenery around there which was nice to see and it was really nice just to sit there in the sun and eat a MAXIBON - yup I found one in Italy Unfortunately I didn't manage to track down any orangina in the end (which was my second goal!). We went for a late-ish dinner at a random restaurant we found - the food was ok, nothing particularly special but the service was appaulingly bad! but never mind. At about 9pm we headed towards the station. We were catching a train just before 1am to Venezia Mestre and then catching one at 1.30am from there to Bruck.....getting us home for around 8am. Only it didn't happen. We got to Mestre fine....although a little bored as there wasn't much to do (ie there was nothing!)....but the train to Bruck was delayed by 110 mins.....mestre is a tiny station and at that time nothing was open, not even anywhere to sit out of the cold (and it was FREEZING). When the train finally arrived we ended up squashed in a six person compartment with 4 other randomers - a really nice young couple and a random lady and her toddler. They all put the seats together to makes beds and Scott and I were then stuck at the other end of the carriage realising that we were getting off before them - it all worked out ok though. We eventuallz got back to our halls at about 10.30 ish. It's now 2pm and I haven't slept since 7am sunday morning as I'm not that good at sleeping on transport - got a lecture soon that'll probably send me to sleep!