Lost in Venice

Nick and I were shaken awake around 5 am. With the others gone, we had about 45 minutes to lay down across the seats. Fortunately, one of the conductors shook us awake and asked if we were going to Venice. He told us we'd better hurry and get off so we could catch our connecting train. After a restless night, Nick and I sat dazed waiting for our connecting train in the middle of the night.

After a short train ride, Nick and I set foot in Venice. There were no offices open yet, so we walked to the nearest bridge and watched the sunrise over the canals of Venice. Again, another breathtaking sunrise! We made our way to the city center and walked around. Venice is beautiful but expensive so we didn't allocate much time. I bought an ice cream cone and we walked around the city center for a bit until we started heading back.

Flocks of tourists started pouring in while we started heading back to the train station. For some reason it was much harder finding our way back to the train station. We didn't have a map so it felt like a maze winding between the narrow alleyways and canals.

We caught a bus just after 11 am to take us across the border into Austria. From there, we took a three hour train to Salzburg. Today was a day full of much traveling and resting. However, it was still bright outside to see how beautiful Austria's mountains are. I was awestruck with how majestic everything looked.

Locating a cheap hostel was easier than I expected. We dropped off our luggage and made our way to the city center. We were starving. However, everything was closed so we didn't eat anything. Instead, we climbed the nearby hill to check out the largest castle located in Central Europe. We could see all of Salzburg and more from the top. Lightning in the distance caught our eye and told us that rain may be coming our way.

An hour later, I found myself in the biggest thunderstorm I've ever experienced. Lightning bolts were everywhere! I asked a local if this was normal--he said the rain was normal but the lightning was not. I felt like I was in a war zone because everyone was running for cover.


Exhaustion settled in once we made it back to the hostel. We decided to get at least 8 hours of sleep. It was glorious.