Italy Discovered

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  • Nov 02, 2000 - Leaving SFO
  • Nov 03, 2000 - England - FIRST TIME!
  • Nov 03, 2000 - Rome - Day 1
  • Nov 04, 2000 - Rome - Day 2
  • Nov 07, 2000 - Rome - Day 3 and Venice
  • Nov 07, 2000 - Venice and Rome
  • Nov 08, 2000 - Back to California
  • Tuesday, Nov 07, 2000

    11/08/00 6:09am (PST) 3:09 (GMT+1)

    We're riding the train first class. Although we only bought 2nd class tickets. Our reservations showed first class. Another fine thank you goes to our travel agent... Ugh.. This did cost us though. But let's start from the morning.

    We got up around 7:15. The sunrise was fantastic, but I wasn't able to see it directly from my window. I only saw the colors in the clouds and I could see the sun light off the bell tower. I snapped a few pictures, though there wasn't much to get a good picture of.

    Room service brought our breakfast and it was delivered promptly at 8am. It was orange juice, a cappuccino, some bread, and croissants. It wasn't a lot, but it was enjoyable.

    We then toured the streets some more. We bought a few more things and then stopped at a small café where I had another cappuccino. Misty accused me of ordering cappuccino's because I just like saying the word. Well, that was not entirely true. Sure I do enjoy saying the word and I do think I say it pretty well now, but I really do like cappuccinos!

    We did consider a gondola ride, but found it to be a bit too commercialized. Now some of the gondola drivers would wear sunglasses, and use cell phones. That just didn't seem to be very picturesque to us. Finally, our time had run out in Venice. We then checked out of our hotel and headed over to the taxi boat dock. The taxi boat carried us to the main docks with the train station. Since we had a bit of time before the train arrived, we got some lunch and sat on the steps to eat. We watched the boats on the water and the pigeons searching for good. I snapped a few final pictures of Venice. We caught our train, and headed back to Rome.

    During ticket check, we were informed that we had First Class reservations but Second Class tickets. Not sure how this happened but, 10,000 Lire seemed to clear up the problem. No, we didn't bribe our ticket guy we simply upgraded our tickets. Besides, if we did bribe him, we certainly could tell you that!

    First class is a bit nicer. We don't have anyone on the sides of us and our seats do recline a bit, plus, we get tiny snacks along with tiny drinks. So is the extra $25.00 worth it? Sure! We say it is. At least that's what we like to keep telling ourselves. And it's really only the price of four cokes in the Plaza de San Marco. Our train rolls along.