Venice. That is all.

I have to say, I'm unimpressed. I really don't have much to say about Venice but I'll give you some pictures and funny stories. I left you off in my Swiss blog with us driving through some crazy mountains and whatnot. After we left Gimmelwald we had about eight hours of driving to go to get to Venice. We went over a massive mountain - up into the clouds. It was terrifying and beautiful all at the same time. Again, more tunnels. At one point we came up on some cows next to the road that I had no idea were there until they were right next to us because we were up in the clouds. We have video of some of this drive. We'll share it when we get home.

At one point we drove through a tunnel for about a half hour to 45 minutes. I have no idea. It was a really long tunnel. When we came out the other side all the street signs were in Italian. We started to doubt out directions and wonder if we had crossed into Italy at some point in the tunnel. No. We didn't. We were just in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland! We still had a long drive to go.

Crossing the border into Italy was our first experience with the Italian people. And it was fantastic. We weren't sure which lane to go through to cross. There were lanes for regular cars, big trucks, RVs, and so on. Brandon directed me to one because it said something about passports. We were obviously in the wrong place. The border officer walked over to us and said, "Why are you in this row??" I immediately pointed to my husband and said, "Because he told me to!" The officer jokingly scowled at him and showed him his handcuffs in a mock threat to arrest him. Brandon apologized and the officer allowed us to pass through. No arrests have happened yet and we choose to keep it that way!

Directly after crossing the bridge into Venice we returned our car to the rental company. You can't drive on the island and I don't want to drive in Italy anyway. Italians drive much like Mexicans. No regard for lanes whatsoever. As we drove through the countryside we were treated by views of vineyards, beautiful Italian buildings, and a very large castle.

I'm actually not sure how to describe Venice for you, my friends. It's not super big. We walked most of it. Of course there are canals through the whole thing. We bought a "bus pass" which got us rides on the bus boats to get from one side to the other. We didn't do the gondola rides. They're very expensive and everyone has told us to skip them. However, it was fun to sit and watch them float by with the tourists taking pictures or joking around with their driver. At one point we saw a Husky's fan float by and Brandon yelled taunts at him in a friendly manner and everyone had a good laugh. One thing I will mention about Venice: If you ever visit, remember to pack bug spray! The mosquitoes are ridiculous. I should have known. It's a city on water. Where mosquitoes gather. Oh well, I'm all bit up.

This is some closeup of mosaics. I absolutely love them.

The streets of Venice are great fun. If we didn't have anywhere to be it was great to just walk and see where we end up. Usually it was St. Mark's Square. The streets are all more like alleyways, some big and some small. Some were very very small and we weren't sure if we should even go down them. It is so easy to get lost in those streets. If we tried to find a specific place we became incredibly turned around and unsure of what "street" we were even on. If we just purposely lost ourselves for fun then we found ourselves at St. Mark's. Weird, right?

The Genesis Dome in St. Mark's entryway. This is all mosaic.

St. Marks Cathedral is one of the most amazing churches I've been in so far. They say that Mark's body is buried there. I'm doubtful. However, everything else is pretty. And stolen. Pretty much everything in that church had been taken from Constantinople. Did I spell that right? This seems to be a common thread throughout all of the Catholic churches we have visited. You'll see stuff about that in my Rome blog later on. The cool thing about St. Mark's, though, is the art. The entire inside, and a lot of the outside, is covered in mosaics. The oldest in the back of the church, to the newest in the entryway. They all tell Bible stories throughout the entire church. My favorite was what is called the Genesis Dome. You can see why in my picture.

Food here in Italy has been really good. We're having a hard time getting out of the tourist areas where the food isn't as good as true Italian food. But we've hit a few good gems. Our first night in Venice was a score and a miss all in one. We had a fantastic cheese platter that came with some bread, jam, and honey. The jam was so yum with cheese. But then our risotto came and it was the saltiest thing I've had in a very long time. I just had to shovel it down my throat as fast as possible it was so bad. I don't even know what other flavors were in it because there was so much salt. We also shared a bottle of wine and I swear the wine here has to be stronger than the wine at home. I'll just leave that as that. Something very disappointing for both of us: breakfast isn't much of a deal here. It's just coffee (which is the best ever) and a pastry. Breakfast is our favorite meal of the day. It's actually hard for us to handle being in a county with no real breakfast!

So that's pretty much it about Venice. It's hot and muggy. I bought a super cute dress and a fan. I have no regrets. We are loving the Italian people. They are all so much fun. Right now we're in Rome. It's amazing. But that'll be for the next blog. Until then, my friends!

Swiss roads, Swiss chocolate, Swiss Alps

Our cute little car for traveling from Munich to Venice and
whatever else in between. So glad it was a small car. 

Our trip to Switzerland came at just the right time for us. We drove from Memmingen, Germany, through Austria, a brief stop at the Lichtenstein border, through Interlaken, Switzerland, to Stechelberg where we had to park our car. I have to say, I was really nervous about renting a car and driving it in a foreign country. It worked out wonderfully, though. The car wasn't too big, gas wasn't too expensive, and I didn't break too many road laws. I'm pretty sure. There were a couple of toll roads that I had no clue as to how to operate. I was supposed to go into one lane but went into another or something like that. I think we missed a couple of payments. But no tickets. After driving through all of these countries, I wonder why people always say, "You have to drive the Autobahn in Germany!" Firstly, "autobahn" is just "freeway." Secondly, the driving laws are the same in all of these countries. I reach a certain point on the road and I can go however fast I want. I really just stuck around 75 to 80 most of the way. I got a little over a hundred for a while just so I can say I did so.

A small view of a Swiss road. 

Once we got into Switzerland, driving got a bit more scary. All of the signs and rules were the same. It's the roads that were different. Switzerland is pretty much all Alpine Mountains. That means that all of the roads are either going around or through a mountain. I was either twisting around the roads or spending 10 plus minutes in a tunnel. My arms were beginning to lose circulation because I was keeping them and 10 and 2 the whole way, leaning forward a bit, staying as focused as I could be as I navigated roads that swerved around 350 degrees and tried to make sure the car behind me didn't hit me because its driver wanted to go twice as fast as what I deemed a safe speed for those roads. Eventually we finally made it to Stechelberg which is where we were to leave our car for three days while we took the cable car up to Gimmelwald and stayed in the beautiful Mountain Hostel.

The stunning view from our
hostel in the Alps.

I think that what we enjoyed the most about staying in the Swiss Alps was that we were away from the city, only had one site to set out and enjoy, and everyone else was there for the same reason. It was wonderfully relaxing. The hostel has four rooms. The girls room, boys room, family room, and the lovers room. We were housed in the lovers room. It was a bunch of row of bunk beds, but what made them cool was that they were in sets of two, so we could actually lay next to each other even though we were in a shared room. There were a lot of other people there our age and we had a great time hanging out and visiting, talking about travels and life plans. Pretty much everyone there was en-route to somewhere else and a common question to be hear was "So where's your next stop?"

One of the many cows we walked by
on our hike. Ain't she beautiful?

We had one full day in Gimmelwald. We used that day to go on a hike. We thought about going to the very top of the mountain, but we were told by seasoned travelers that it wasn't really worth it and that another hike was better. So we went on that other hike and regret nothing. The trail is called the North Face Trail. It pretty much follows the north face of the mountain. Get it? It was fantastic. We hiked for about three hours (with stops) and saw so many wonderful parts of the mountain. The view was amazing. The trail took us through farmlands, herds of cows, fields, electrified fencing, over a river, and along cliff-sides. We had to set aside all of our lifelong training of what trespassing means and go through a whole bunch of gates, walking through people's yards and by farmers working in their fields. The gates were attached to electrified fencing where the herds of cows are kept with their noisy bells, poo piles, and flies. We struck it lucky in that our one full day was the one clear day of the week. It was foggy before we got there and foggy again when we left. So we were treated to all kinds of awesome mountain views. We were also treated to a lot of hot sun. I got a lovely sunburn that I'm still babying today.

Probably the best meal we
had in Switzerland. For real.

Food in the Alps is terribly expensive. Check that. Restaurants in the Alps are terribly expensive. We at at a restaurant before we went on our hike but then after that we bought a bunch of food at the market and brought it back to our hostel. The hostel has a kitchen with a bunch of baskets and space for people to keep food there. They also had a couple of "free" baskets where they put things that people leave behind. So along with our market food and whatever we could scrounge from the "free" basket, we made ourselves an awesome dinner of tortellini and and salad and a delicious breakfast scramble that everyone was so jealous of. It felt great because, not only did we save an amazing amount of money, but a few of our new friends complimented us on how well we worked together to make some great food!

Two things about Gimmelwald that I didn't witness myself, but heard from other guests of the Mountain Hostel:
1 - Gimmelwald is home to Europe's first ever Honesty Shop. This is a store that doesn't have any staff manning a till. It's simply a room with a lot of stuff in it. You go in, find what you need - general supplies, souvenirs, clothes - leave the money in the designated location, and leave with your goods. Awesome idea for such a small town.
2 - One guest said that there was a cheese shop on our road that isn't advertised except for a little tiny sign outside of a house. He went up and knocked on the door and an old woman poked her head out of an upstairs window and called down, "Hallo?" He said, "I would like to buy some cheese?" She responded with an "Oh!" shut the window, ran downstairs, and opened the door he was standing at. She welcomed him into a little room that had three big things of cheese along with other knick-knacks and she sold him some cheese right there.

So that's Switzerland for you! Scary roads, cool mountains, great hikes, nasty sunburns, AHmazing chocolate. Really, we got some super cheap Swiss-made milk chocolate and it's the best I've ever had. I'm sad to leave that behind. We're about to finish up Venice, Italy, and I'm pretty sure our place in Rome has a decent computer so that blog will be coming soon! So, until next time, my friends!