Venice Day 3 - September 18 - Trip Day 36
Jonathan and I got up early to be at the Basilica San Marco 15 minutes before it opened. The line was already quite long! Just in time, as it turned out: though we were in line by 9:30, we didn't get inside until 10:00. These gave us ten minutes to speed through the amazing Byzantine cathedral before booking it back to the apartment, where the owner was meeting us at 10:30 to settle up our bill. Apparently he arrived early and people we worried about whether we were going to make it, but we really were back right at 10:30! We threw our stuff in our packs, paid, and headed out. Kathleen and Adam took the vaporetto to the train station because they had passes, but we walked.
Now, it turned out that we weren't going back to Munich that night, because my host mom in Germany had guests. Instead, we decided to go to Salzburg. I couldn't find the route on the Italian train website so we bought our tickets online from the Austrian railway company, figuring we could print them out at the train station in Venice. Turns out... not so much. Couldn't print it out at any of the ticket pick-up machines, nor could the ticket purchase agent help us out because they couldn't access the reservations from the Austrian system. Ack!
We did have a few hours before our train, so in the worst case, we probably would've gone to a nice hotel that had a printer and persuaded them (by which I mean, $$$) to help us out. But, before that, we went to customer service on the ticket agent's recommendation. We had to wait for 10 minutes or so, but the customer service lady was very helpful. She just let us use her computer to log in to the Austrian train website and we were able to print out the tickets on their printer there. Whew! Now that I think about it, I should go leave them some good feedback or something.
Ticket print-outs in hand, we decided to do a last bit of wandering. It was super sunny and beautiful. Almost a little too hot, as we were walking around with our packs, but it was all right! We walked east from the train station into the Conegliano area. The tide was so high that it was splashing onto the walkways.
By pure luck, we stumbled onto the old Jewish ghetto area, which was really interesting to see. There is a Jewish museum and a synagogue that one can visit. Since it was Rosh Hashanah, though, they were closed. We actually spotted a Rosh Hashanah ceremony happening. It looked like we had already missed the blowing of the shofar (horn). I wondered whether Jonathan would want to go in, but he pointed out that - aside from the fact that he's not religious and that it all would've been in Italian, which neither of us speak - we were wandering around with huge backpacks, about to get on a train, on a high holy day, when Jews aren't supposed to travel! So that would be awkward.
It's too bad that we couldn't go to the museum. The ghetto has a long and rich history. At one point, 10,000 people lived on this island which is about the size of a city block. Hard to believe! Now there are not many Jewish people left in Venice, but there is still a kosher bakery, two kosher restaurants, a kosher hotel, and two synagogues.
After that little tour, we had a quick but delicious lunch (gnocchi!), then got on our train.
Our first train went directly from Venice St. Lucia station to Innsbruck. The Venice to Innsbruck train was unremarkable; I can't recall it clearly enough to say anything positive or negative. In Innsbruck, we transferred to a train to Salzburg. That was a pretty swanky high-speed train. Very smooth and quiet ride. This train crossed our hiking trail. In fact, the tracks went right by the hotel we'd stayed at in Hall! That was neat.
We got in to Salzburg fairly late at night - I want to say maybe 9 or 10ish? There was a supermarket in the train station, so we just picked up some snacks and cold prepared food things for a modest late dinner at the hotel. We stayed at the Pension Jahn because it was (a) very close to the train station and (b) super cheap! It was definitely pretty basic, very dated decor, but it was clean and totally fine. There was a shared bathroom out in the hall, but same story, clean and fine, despite the extraordinarily ugly tile. Incidentally, the included breakfast was very good.
Now, it turned out that we weren't going back to Munich that night, because my host mom in Germany had guests. Instead, we decided to go to Salzburg. I couldn't find the route on the Italian train website so we bought our tickets online from the Austrian railway company, figuring we could print them out at the train station in Venice. Turns out... not so much. Couldn't print it out at any of the ticket pick-up machines, nor could the ticket purchase agent help us out because they couldn't access the reservations from the Austrian system. Ack!
We did have a few hours before our train, so in the worst case, we probably would've gone to a nice hotel that had a printer and persuaded them (by which I mean, $$$) to help us out. But, before that, we went to customer service on the ticket agent's recommendation. We had to wait for 10 minutes or so, but the customer service lady was very helpful. She just let us use her computer to log in to the Austrian train website and we were able to print out the tickets on their printer there. Whew! Now that I think about it, I should go leave them some good feedback or something.
Ticket print-outs in hand, we decided to do a last bit of wandering. It was super sunny and beautiful. Almost a little too hot, as we were walking around with our packs, but it was all right! We walked east from the train station into the Conegliano area. The tide was so high that it was splashing onto the walkways.
By pure luck, we stumbled onto the old Jewish ghetto area, which was really interesting to see. There is a Jewish museum and a synagogue that one can visit. Since it was Rosh Hashanah, though, they were closed. We actually spotted a Rosh Hashanah ceremony happening. It looked like we had already missed the blowing of the shofar (horn). I wondered whether Jonathan would want to go in, but he pointed out that - aside from the fact that he's not religious and that it all would've been in Italian, which neither of us speak - we were wandering around with huge backpacks, about to get on a train, on a high holy day, when Jews aren't supposed to travel! So that would be awkward.
It's too bad that we couldn't go to the museum. The ghetto has a long and rich history. At one point, 10,000 people lived on this island which is about the size of a city block. Hard to believe! Now there are not many Jewish people left in Venice, but there is still a kosher bakery, two kosher restaurants, a kosher hotel, and two synagogues.
After that little tour, we had a quick but delicious lunch (gnocchi!), then got on our train.
Our first train went directly from Venice St. Lucia station to Innsbruck. The Venice to Innsbruck train was unremarkable; I can't recall it clearly enough to say anything positive or negative. In Innsbruck, we transferred to a train to Salzburg. That was a pretty swanky high-speed train. Very smooth and quiet ride. This train crossed our hiking trail. In fact, the tracks went right by the hotel we'd stayed at in Hall! That was neat.
We got in to Salzburg fairly late at night - I want to say maybe 9 or 10ish? There was a supermarket in the train station, so we just picked up some snacks and cold prepared food things for a modest late dinner at the hotel. We stayed at the Pension Jahn because it was (a) very close to the train station and (b) super cheap! It was definitely pretty basic, very dated decor, but it was clean and totally fine. There was a shared bathroom out in the hall, but same story, clean and fine, despite the extraordinarily ugly tile. Incidentally, the included breakfast was very good.