Day 36 Florence:

We wake up this morning around 7:30 but this is our second time. We got the 4am wakeup call when an alarm decided to sound outside in the street for about half an hour. Unfortunately we are still having no luck with the early morning noise. We are going to wander around this morning and try to see the things we haven’t got around to seeing yet, the Uffizi, Piazza Santa Croce, the statue of David and the Duomo Museum and Cathedral. We start off by walking to the Uffizi via the Ponte Vecchio and do the walk under the raised path built to allow the king to wander Florence without having to mix with the rabble below. We get to the Uffizi and go to the entrance to get a ticket. The very unpleasant lady at the desk informs us that it will be 44 Euro to get in. The kids have to pay 11 Euro each because the live outside Europe. Kris and I think old paintings are a bit of a bore and at 44 Euro we continue walking. We head to Piazza Santa Croce, made famous by the Florence game of Calcio Storico. This is a very violent game of no rules football played between teams representing there area once a year. It’s not on today of course, but we just want to check out the Piazza. We get there and see this incredible Church at one end. The exterior is one of the best we have seen yet with amazing carvings in the huge timber doors and the marble facade and better still there is virtually no one here!! We head around the corner and see an entrance. They are only charging 10 Euro for all of us to go in so we grab some tickets. The inside of this church is incredible. As we are wandering around we realise that this is the church that houses the tombs of Michelangelo, Machiavelli and Galileo to name a few. The gear in this church is beyond comparison and we think it has surpassed the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur in Paris. We walk out of there pumped and head across the Piazza toward the Accademia where the statue of David resides. Most things in Florence are pretty close to each other so walking around is relatively easy. We get to the Accademia and the queue to get in goes around the corner. We decide that the 300 replica statues of David we have seen so far on most street corners will suffice and keep walking. We grab some lunch close to home and when we are finished we head up to the apartment to google some restaurants. We want to try and find a place that dishes up more traditional Tuscan food for dinner as opposed to the touristy rubbish they dish up around the main attractions here. We see a couple of restaurants on the net so we head back out to see if we can find them and check out what the menu looks like. The first one we come across looks fantastic. We figure a good sign to a traditional restaurant is that the menu is only in Italian with no English translation. The restaurant is closed at the moment as it closes between lunch and dinner but a bloke that works there helps us out by translating the menu for us. We reckon it sounds a bit of alright so we make a reservation and leave looking forward to tonight. Now we are off to see the Duomo museum with the tickets we got the other day. This museum proves to be a winner with heaps of amazing sculptures. Kris and I both like the sculptures and the architecture side of all these old places and for 22 Euro we got to walk to the top of the Duomo the other day as well. Heaps better value than the Uffizi we reckon. We get out of the museum and head over to the Duomo Cathedral which is free to get in. There is always a massive queue at the entrance of this place but because it is 10 minutes from closing there is no queue, awesome. The Duomo is a massive highlight for us so we walk in all excited and.......the bloody things a dud!!!! We look around and it’s stark, lifeless, no paintings on the ceiling, apart from the dome section which you can’t access due to it being roped off. We get ushered out 10 minutes later but we feel that’s all the time we needed to see this thing anyway. The facade to this building is incredible, amazing and you get the feeling that when you get inside you are going to see something special. I said to Kris, it’s like picking up a chick in a hot dress with this awesome cleavage hanging out and you’re thinking, yeah baby and you get her home and she whips off her bra and there’s noth’n!!!! Never mind, we missed out on some things today but we feel what we did see made up for it 10 fold. We head home and get ready for our big Tuscan dinner. We get moving for our 10 minute walk to the restaurant named Il Latina. We walk around the corner into the street the restaurant is on and BANG, there is like 50 people all standing outside the front door. We walk down and I ask some Italian women if they have a reservation or are they just waiting to get in. She responds in Italian so I’m none the wiser. A bloke is standing there at the entrance happy as Larry checking off reservation names and inviting them in. We are at the back of the bunch at this point and it looks like it’s going to be a while before we get in. I’m waving my hand like a crazy man trying to get his attention without luck. I look back to see where Kristine is and she’s not there??!! I then hear the man from the restaurant say “Yes, Kristine, 4, come in” I’m thinking “someone has stolen our reservation” but in fact Kristine had muscled her way to the front and before you know it we are being shown to our seat. Even though there was a huge crowd outside the restaurant is packed. There are no menus and there is a big 2 litre bottle of Chianti wine on the table. We get served entrees within minutes (we haven’t ordered anything) and it’s a mix of meats, cheese, salad and some other stuff I’ve never seen before. The waiter says to drink the wine and we only charge for what you drink. We do exactly that and we start eating. When we are done with that the waiter tells us what’s up for grabs in the next course and we chow down again. The waiters aren’t dressed like waiters and actually, it feels more like we are in someone’s home. People come and go and people are seated next to strangers, it’s fantastic. We have an awesome meal and finish up and the owner, some old Italian bloke, comes around to our table and the waiter just sort of tells him what we had for dinner, he looks at our bottle of wine and guesstimates how much we have had and then he just starts scribbling stuff down on his invoice book like he’s pulling it fair and square out of his clacker. We are willing to pay anything really so we don’t really care what the cost is but at the end of the day it was pretty cheap. Apparently this family have been running this restaurant for 100 years this year and they have pretty much been doing it the same way all that time. It’s about a quarter to ten as we get up to leave but we have just as much trouble getting out as we did getting in because there is still a huge crowd waiting to get in. This has been an absolute treat for us tonight and was exactly what we wanted. Although the meal was good, I’m not going to say it was the best meal I have ever had but it was definitely one of the best experiences I’ve ever had.

“A section of the front door of the church at Piazza Santa Croce”

“Some of the amazing detail in the church door”

“The doors in full. The little round thing above Kris’ head is the previous picture”

“The kids lighting a candle in the church”

“The tomb of Michelangelo. Smile in front of the dead man, kids”

“This Pulpit was the highlight for me. Unfortunately this picture does not do it justice”

“The front facade of the church in Piazza Santa Croce”

“You better believe it, Tyler”

“That’s us......with prosciutto hanging above our heads”

Day 35 Florence:

Today we wake up to our first day in over two weeks where the sky is not blue. We’ve had a great run with the weather but today apparently, it is going to stay overcast and cloudy. We are going to do a day trip to Siena today but Kris and I aren’t ones for the whole tour group thing so we are going to go down to the local bus depot and catch the regional bus instead. We get ready and make our way to the bus depot which is not far, just next to the train station. We get on the bus and head off for the 1 hour and 15 minute ride over the Tuscan hills to Siena. It’s a fairly bumpy ride even though we are travelling major roads. The roads look like they too have been around since the 1300’s and are in serious need of a bit of restoration. The overcast day was short lived and by half way into our journey the sky is clear blue. We get to Siena and make our way down to the Piazza del Campo, the main square in Siena. This is the location of the famous Palio which is a medieval horse race run twice a year.  The first thing that hits you is the massive bell tower, the Torre del Mangia. This bell tower which sits right next to the town hall dates back to the early 1300’s and we are going to walk up its 400 steps to the top. Our mission on this holiday is to walk up 1 million steps and I reckon we should crack it here!! The climb up is very tight. The stair access is only designed for 1 way traffic and I also think it was designed for a 4 foot man as some of the arches above the stairs were quite small. The view at the top is fantastic with a view over Siena and into the rolling hills. We climb down again and decide its lunch time so we find a restaurant in the Piazza del Campo and order. We are fortunate enough to share several cigarettes with the wrinkly old bag at the table next to us while having lunch. Nothing better than enjoying a cigy with your pizza! We leave there with a couple of years taken off our lifespan and go and buy tickets for the Museum, Cathedral & Duomo and Battistero box set. The museum is awesome with some works dating back to the 1200’s. We moved on to the Cathedral & Duomo and this thing is spectacular, a work of art in itself. This reminds us a lot of Westminster Abbey in London. The detail in the walls and ceiling is mind blowing. We move onto the Battistero and this is basically a mini cathedral with incredible paintings on the ceilings. We decide it’s time to go back to Florence and we make a dash for the bus station. If we miss the next bus we will be waiting an hour for the next one so I order the troops to double time it! We get there on time, get on board and do the whole sleepy nod back and forth thing all the way home. We are going to stay in tonight and eat at the apartment. We are still not getting a lot of sleep so we are going to call it an early night and hopefully when the noise starts up at 4 in the morning again we will have had our 8 hours.

“Ready for the bus ride to Siena”

“Wandering through the Piazza del Campo”

“The kids ¼ of the way up the tower looking back over Piazza del Campo”

“At the top of the Torre del Mangia”

“The view over Siena”

“Some of the detail at the entrance to Siena’s Cathedral”

“Some of the detail inside Siena’s Cathedral”

Day 34 Florence:

Today we all had a bit of a sleep in; I think it’s got to that point where we are all a bit shagged again. We go through stages where we go hammer and tongs for a few days and then we fall in a heap. The only fault with this apartment is that the markets outside get removed every night around 10 and they set back up again around 4 in the morning. The noise of removing the markets and then setting them back up is ridiculous. The one thing that has been consistent on our holiday has been noise. Sleep has been at a premium and it is no different here. We finally get moving around 9:30 and it’s straight to the Duomo. We fork out the 22 Euro which allows us to climb the Duomo to the top and this also includes entrance to the museum which we are going to leave until Friday along with entering the cathedral. The walk up is fantastic. Tight little access stairs and spiral staircases lead to the final section, the dome. When you approach the stairs of the dome it’s spectacular. We reach the top and the views over Florence are just what you would expect. We spend a while taking snaps before making the climb back down. Once out we make our way home to pack our lunch as we are going back on the open top bus tour to have some lunch up at the Machiavelli lookout section we visited yesterday. On the way to the bus we buy a cheap rugby ball from the markets so we can have a bit of a kick after lunch. The ball is an Australian rugby ball in the traditional colours of red, white and blue. I did say it was cheap!! We get to the lookout and take a walk looking for a suitable spot. We find a chair on the side of a hill overlooking Florence and have our lunch. As we did yesterday, we cut up bread with ham and cheese and a bit of salad and fruit. After lunch we find some grass where Tyler can re-enact the 2011 Preliminary Final, with a different outcome of course. After that it’s back on the bus and back to the apartment for another rest before heading out for dinner. We Walk down streets we haven’t been down before and find ourselves walking along the Arno River toward the Ponte Vecchio, Florence’s’ most famous bridge. This bridge dates back to 1354 and even during World War II the Nazi’s couldn’t bare to blow this thing up. After a while wandering over the bridge we head back in the direction of the Duomo before deciding to go off the beat’n track. This proves a good move as we find a quiet street with a restaurant that looks more traditional than the ones in the touristy areas. The food and wait staff in this restaurant are fantastic and we end up having a great night. It’s getting late so we stop off for gelato on the way home before going back to the apartment and it’s pretty much straight to bed.

“The ceiling of the Duomo”

“Walking up inside the Duomo”

“A view from the top. Our apartment is at the front bottom left of the big green roof”

“Coming back down the dome section of the Duomo”

“The view from the Ponte Vecchio”

“The kids on the Ponte Vecchio”

“Walking over the Ponte Veccio”

“Mmmm, Spaghetti”

“Trattoria Antico Fatto, the restaurant where we had dinner”

Day 33 Florence:

We decide today we will get back to familiar territory, the open top bus tour! We have some breaky and pack our bag with ham and cheese, a loaf of crusty bread and some fruit and make our way down to the start of the bus tour. This is a very easy 300-400m walk. The location of our apartment is fantastic. It seems we are within a short walk to most of the main attractions and this makes getting around simple and quick. We board the bus which will take us on the blue route. It’s a bit chilly on the top of the bus but we are expecting it to warm up soon. We complete the route and see some fantastic stuff along the way, mainly up and around the Machiavelli where we are high up on a hill and have great views over Florence. We jump off the bus and grab a coffee and some cakes and get back on the red route bound for the small town of Fiesole (pronounced Fee-ez-o-lay). This route covers the Machiavelli again but in reverse which was great before taking off toward the hills on the other side of Florence. We wind our way up the hill and have fantastic views of Florence from the other side. We decide to get off the bus and take a wander through Fiesole and try to find a spot to stop for lunch. We take a walk up some very narrow roads higher up the hill until we get to a spot overlooking olive trees and an awesome view of Florence. We sit on a wall, cut up our bread and chow down. It is quite warm now and it has become a beautiful day. We finish up and decide to walk back to the bus as it only comes every hour so if we miss it, it will be a bit of a wait. Our timing was perfect as we get to the stop just as it arrives to take us back. We head back to the apartment for a rest before heading back out again around 4ish. We start off by going through a handbag shop and then decide to find somewhere to eat just as we exit our 95^th and last handbag shop. One thing’s for sure, I need a drink! We find a restaurant in the same piazza as last night because the 3 piece band is back playing again. The restaurants here have guys out the front showing you the menu and talking it up so you will eat at their restaurant, a lot like Lygon Street in Carlton. We order some wine and some food and the old guy at the front of the restaurant comes over and gives the kids a ticket each for a ride on the carousel in the piazza. We enjoy a beautiful night with lots of wine when the old guy is back with a free lemoncello for Kris and me. We’re not huge fans of lemoncello but we can’t offend the old guy so we drink up. We are feeling pretty sloshed at this point so we decide on grabbing some gelato on the way home before hitting the sack.

"Back on the bus"

"The Ponte Vecchio"

"What do you call that. I know what I call it, I call it a JOKE!!!"

"The man with the dudie is very funny"

"I think we feast here, what do you reckon Tyler?"

"Kristine preparing the feast"

"Our views while we feast"

Day 32 Florence:

Its 2:45 and we have just arrived in Florence and in the words of George Costanza “I”M BACK BABY!!!! This place is FANTASTIC. We get off the train and it’s about a 400m walk to our apartment entrance. We are greeted by the agent, Mine (pronounced My-Knee) and she takes us up the four flights of stairs to our apartment. We are greeted by another person, Stefano (we think he’s the owner) at the door. Mine shows us through the apartment and this place is superb, the best apartment we have been in so far. This was the apartment we had to book last minute when we were in London because the previous apartment became unavailable. It just so happens that the previous apartment was also managed by the same dude as the Venice apartment so we are feeling pretty smug right about now. While Mine is showing us around, Stefano has gone back down the four flights of stairs and carted all our luggage up to the apartment. Now, Kristine has been on a bit of a shopping spree over the past 4 weeks so these bags are bloody heavy, but no probs for Stefano, what a guy! They go through all the finer details with us and then Stefano presents us with a gift wrapped bottle of wine. We are sobbing with joy at this point....just kidding, but it was pretty awesome and this vindicated they way we felt about our Venice apartment. We throw our stuff in the rooms and head straight out for a wander and some late lunch. Literally outside our door is a hive of activity, street markets, shops, restaurants, bars, you name it. We go no more than 100m and we get ushered into a restaurant by a very enthusiastic man telling us that his brother is the best chef in Florence. The food wasn’t the best but it was very cheap and it was a very entertaining afternoon. We continued on and find a supermarket just down the road so we stocked up with fruit and groceries. By now it’s around 6ish so we head back to the apartment to shower up to head back out again. We get moving again around 7ish and head of for another wander. We walk no more than 200m and bang, the Duomo is staring straight down at us, what an awesome sight. This is the reason we came to Florence, the Duomo. I can’t wait until I get the opportunity to go inside. We continue on and come across a little square, the Piazza Della Republica where there is a three piece band playing. One guy is on the double bass, another on guitar and the other on violin. They are playing all the Italian classics so we sit and watch for a while before deciding to fork out the 10 Euro for their CD. We like the music so much we take a seat at one of the restaurants in the Piazza and order some wine and we sit and listen for an hour or so. We finish up and take the short walk home. This is what we thought Italy would be like, the people here are very friendly, they’re enthusiastic and we love the joint.

"The Duomo"

"The kids standing in front of the Duomo"

Day 32 Venice:

I have made up my mind; I will never, ever, ever come back to Venice, ever! This place has been an extreme disappointment. The day started off quite well, we woke up and went out for a wander and a coffee. There are some things we cannot complain about regarding our stay in Venice, the weather has been fantastic, the food has been wonderful and the coffee is the best I’ve had. So we get to the coffee shop and buy a couple of coffees and some lovely Italian cakes and we do the whole stand up thing (because it’s cheaper than sitting down, we’ve sort of mastered that now) and enjoy the passing parade of people and the amazing coffee. The other thing we cannot complain about is the honesty and the friendliness of the tourists. Although there have been a lot of them the ones we have met have been great. After we left the coffee shop we kept walking and it appeared to us that the amount of people in the streets had halved. It automatically made the place a lot more likeable. We think that because we arrived on Friday night and are now leaving on a Monday that maybe we hit the weekend tourist crowd. Not sure, but it was a lot more pleasant. Anyway, we are wandering around enjoying ourselves when I realise I don’t have Kris’s camera on me which I definitely did have before. I check with everyone else and yep, I’ve left it at the coffee shop. We make the mad dash back through the maze of streets to try and find the coffee shop we went to. We finally find it and some honest tourist had handed it over to the coffee shop staff, phew, what a relief. The morning walk and getting our camera back has helped us form a better impression of Venice and we are starting to feel better about the place. It’s nudging 10:30 so we have to head back to the apartment to grab our stuff before catching the waterbus back to the train station. On the way we grab some waterbus tickets because they don’t have a ticket machine on our stop. We get slugged 26 Euro ($36) for the 2km boat ride which is obscene but hey, that’s Venice! We get to the apartment and grab our bags and head down to our bus stop. When we get there an Italian couple from Florida informs us that the waterbus service is on strike today and there will be no waterbus. You think they may have put a sign on the very busy ticket machine at the waterbus stop we bought our ticket from wouldn’t you, but hey....that’s Venice! We agree with this couple (who had also bought tickets and are equally infuriated) that we can share a water taxi at 80 Euro ($110) so we head back to the couples hotel where they order one.  While we are waiting another couple ask for a water taxi so it’s agreed with the hotel staff that they can share with us. That’s great the 80 Euro cost of the water taxi can now be split three ways so the price is coming down. We all get on board and this thing takes about 10 minutes to reach the train station and the thieving, stinking, water taxi guy demands 170 Euro ($240). 170 EURO FOR A 10 MINUTE BOAT RIDE.....you filthy, stinky, dirty thief!!!! It is costing Kris and I and the kids a total of $118 Euro for the 2 hour train ride to Florence and he wants 170 Euro!!!! But hey..........that’s Venice and unfortunately, that will be our memory.

Day 31 Venice:

I don’t know what it is that gets everyone is so excited about Venice because it has certainly been lost on me. There must be something good about this place though given the 28 million tourists walking around these streets. Another day here has not improved my impressions of this place. It is seriously over crowded, the place smells, the locals are rude and I have just about had it with the herds of sheep clogging up the streets every 30 seconds as they follow behind their tour group leader who’s holding up their little “follow me” marker! The rudeness is something that has taken us by surprise though. I saw Kristine get angry with an ice-cream shop lady today because of her rudeness; I haven’t seen her get this worked up at all on the holiday so far. Kristine paid the money for the ice creams and when the lady handed back the change Kristine said to her “you are rude, you’re a very rude person”, it was hilarious. Some of the main attraction areas like Piazza San Marco are just a nightmare due to the huge volumes of people and this has been extremely disappointing for us. We’ve had to put up with crowds everywhere we have been so far but here it seems different and maybe that’s because the place is so small and everyone is confined to small alley ways. Unfortunately I also think my Venice experience has been tainted a bit by the disappointing accommodation. The apartment is very clean and it is in a great location but it’s obvious to us that the people who own the apartment and the people managing the apartment do not care at all about our holiday experience and only about lining their pockets. We’ve contacted the lady who we met when we arrived in Venice first thing yesterday morning about some minor issues that needed attending to and we are still waiting for a response. We got slugged 50 Euro ($70) up front for a final clean. We will effectively be in this place for 2 ½ days and they slug us 50 EURO to clean the joint!!! Normally Kris and I and the kids would do a pretty thorough clean before we leave an apartment but we will not be doing that here. I’m telling you now the skid marks on the toilet bowl are staying put when I walk out this door tomorrow! I’m convinced though that Venice is not the real Italy and that this place has become some sort of contrived Italy based purely on tourism, well that’s my hope at least. We get to find out tomorrow as we leave here and head to Florence.

"The coffee standing up experience"

"Hello signore, would you like your pizza by the slice?"
"I don't think so signora"

"She better not be eating my pizza"

"The family shot"

Day 30 Venice:

After a full on day yesterday we are hoping for a better day today, our first full day in Venice. The first thing that is apparent is the apartment is nowhere near as good as any of our previous accommodation. When renting holiday accommodation there are a few simple things that you should be provided with like, a hair dryer, globes that work when you turn the lights on, dunny roll......how about 1 spare dunny roll!!!! At all our previous accommodation we would open the pantry and there would be basic provisions, some cereal, jam, band-aids, tea, coffee, soap.......a spare bloody dunny roll!!!! Not here, it’s like some dude has just been evicted and the place has been stripped of anything useful. They have a 14” TV!!! Who in the hell still has a 14” TV????? And, the bloody thing doesn’t work. They have no instructions for anything in the apartment and they have no information about Venice at all. When you are staying in holiday accommodation for 2 or 3 days you need an immediate leg up regarding tourist information so you can hit the ground running. In Munich for example, the owner had a huge map with about 50 coloured pins in it describing where all the restaurants were, shops were, pharmacies were etc. Fantastic!! She had tourist brochures, books about Munich, public transport information, exactly what you would expect in holiday accommodation. Not here though. Also, all our other accommodation has provided free WiFi and not having it provided here has made it even more difficult to get quick and easy information about Venice. This apartment is fair dinkum shizenhousen!!! This has increased my disappointment with Venice and Italy at this point so it’s time to get amongst it and try and resurrect my impression of the joint. We leave the apartment and go for a wander and basically try and get a feel for the place. Kris is in love, she is instantly taken by the place and this is one place she was really looking forward to but I’m having a hard time with it all and at this point Venice is sitting at the bottom of the pile as far as destinations I have been to so far. I’m finding the place to be a bit same old same old. It seems if you’ve been up one little alley way you’ve been up them all and if you are sick of walking up alley ways there is bugger all left to do, not to mention the place is on the pong!! I think that maybe I’ve been spoilt by all the amazing places I have seen so far and I need to view Venice in isolation. We go back to the apartment and I wash my brain of all previous thoughts and we head back out for another go. We find a place that sells pizza by the slice. Beautiful stuff, that’s more like it. We walk down to the Grand Canal and eat it while watching gondola’s float by. We continue walking and we come across a place selling gelato and we all give it a shot and this stuff is beautiful. We give the kids the reins and they lead us to god knows where because this place is like a rabbit warren. We get lost numerous times before we eventually found our way back to the apartment. We managed to find a place selling take-away wine on the way so we grabbed a bottle for home. We set the kids up in front of a movie on the computer and Kris and I set about guzzling this bottle of wine on our balcony overlooking the canal. This proves to be a bit of a turning point and when that’s gone we get ready to head out for dinner. We walk for a while but end up back at the same restaurant as last night just around the corner from our apartment. We had a fantastic meal and we all sat around talking and cracking jokes and we all laughed so hard that we were in tears and I nearly spat red wine all over the place I was laughing so hard. It was something we all needed because 4 weeks of travel together had got us all a bit stressed. Tomorrow we will be going on a gondola ride so we are looking forward to that.

"Kris and the kids down at the Grand Canal"

"Me and the kids down at the Grand Canal"

"Wndering around the Canals"

"That's not a pizza, THIS is a pizza"

"Eating the worlds best pizza down at the Grand Canal"

"You can't have the worlds best Pizza without having the worlds best ice-cream"

"Out for dinner on the canal"

"Mia's having a bad hair day at the restaurant"



"Tyler's hair day is not much better"
(Mia is behind him and she has thrown her hair over Tyler)



Day 29 St. Moritz - Venice:

Well, that was a day we weren’t quite expecting. Today we were leaving our overnight location, St Moritz and heading to Venice in Italy. This was going to be our most challenging journey of all the journeys we have on this holiday as it involves 4 legs over 8 hours. It all started ok, we get out of bed in our hotel in St Moritz and headed down for breaky. After that we head back upstairs and grab our stuff and then the porter gives us a taxi ride to the train station for our first leg, the 10 o’clock train to Thusis. We get on board and this train takes us back along the same line as the Glacier Express except on this train you can slide the window down so I spent the entire leg standing up and sticking my head out the window. We get to Thusis a couple of minutes early. At this point we have 9 minutes to transfer to a bus at the bus port to take us to Bellinzona. 2 minutes prior to arriving at Thusis we thought we were transferring to another train but my 453^rd check of the ticket proved vital as I discovered it was the bus and not the train we were getting on to next. Phew, tragedy averted!! We find the bus without too much of a problem and we are on our way. The next connection could be hairy as this bus ride is reliant on road traffic that could potentially hold us up but ol’ Giovanni the bus driver has clearly done this route before and he puts the hammer down. This bus route proves to be the most amazing route we have travelled to date, an absolute cracker with views I didn’t think existed. I can’t explain any of it in a way that will do it justice in this blog. All I can say is, if you ever get the opportunity to travel the road between San B and Bellinzona, do it, it is incredible. We get to Bellinzona and we now have 12 minutes to find our next connection to Milano. We find the platform but the train isn’t there, it’s running late!! OK, it’s only 6 minutes, shouldn’t be a problem as we have a 20 minute transfer time at Milano. We get on board and we have seat reservations but this doesn’t seem to concern any of the other morons on the train and we end up sitting all over the place in different seats. At this point we’re all tired, we’re travelling with two kids and we are in the middle of an all day train ride. This one old woman insisted she had to sit in our seat because it was an aisle seat and her hip is no good and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. What I said to her was “No worries, my daughter will sit over here and we will work around you and.......” What I felt like saying was “Get you fat old wrinkly arse off my seat and go and sit in your own seat you silly old......” But I didn’t. This train leg is only 1 hour and 25 minutes, one of our shorter train rides, so we can put up with a little inconvenience. As our scheduled arrival time gets closer we start loading up by putting our back packs on, grabbing any other bags we have and eyeballing our suitcases ready for the mad dash, standard procedure. The train starts to slow down and I ask this bloke if this is Milano Station and he tells me no it’s not, apparently the train is running 20 minutes late. I’m sort of not too happy right about now especially considering this is a 1hr and 25 minute train journey and the train is 20 MINUTES LATE!!!!! Regardless of this fact I still think we may be a chance to make our connection even though its 20 minutes late and I don’t know what platform we have to get to at this point in time. The train finally pulls in to Milano and we bolt, we run as fast as we can to an electronic board to see the platform number we need to get to. We have a look.....no number, just some words scrolling where there should be a number. We grab some Italian train worker who’s sitting down having a fag and drag him over to the board to translate the text and he informs us the train has left. FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFar out!!!!! What now??? I tell Kris and the kids to follow me and I run around like a chook with its head cut off trying to find an info desk. We see one and there are some people talking to this train conductor looking bloke. It soon becomes apparent that they too have all missed their connection to Venice. This train conductor bloke is clearly unsympathetic and tells us that there is another train in an hour and to get on that and explain our problem to the conductor on that train. I say to him “What about our seat reservations” he waves his hands around in a way that pretty much suggests to me that he doesn’t give a rats. We wait until the next train and it’s not at the platform we were advised to wait at so we now have to battle the masses of people who were already at the correct platform. I collar the conductor at the door of the train and explain to him our situation that we missed our train and we now don’t have seat reservations and he just says “get on this carriage” We get on and there are no seats available so we just have to stand there. Luckily there is another older Australian couple in the same situation who got on the same carriage as us and they both spoke fluent Italian. The train gets moving and a different conductor comes to check our tickets. He checks the other Aussie couples tickets first and the wife just launches into this conductor in Italian and they are going at it hammer and tongs. They argued for a good 10-15 minutes. In the end they had to fork out extra cash to stay on. He turns to me and I show him my ticket and I start giving him a spray but he can’t understand a word I’m saying so the Aussie woman translates for me. After about 5 minutes the Aussie woman turns and says to me that he’s kicking us off at the next station because our ticket hadn’t been validated for this journey. At this point Tyler’s crying, Mia thinks it’s all good fun and I am gobsmacked. We’ve paid for our tickets, his stinking train was late and we’re getting kicked off!!?? The Aussie woman goes back in to bat for us and it turns out he wants another 32 Euro ($45) from us to stay on the train. The Aussie woman manages to convince him that we shouldn’t have to pay and in the end he let us stay on. We still didn’t have a seat and we ended up standing for the entire 2hr 45min journey. The other Aussie couple were fantastic. They ended up letting the kids sit in their seats and the husband even set up his laptop and put a movie on for them. About 10 minutes later, we pull up to the next station and this Italian couple jump on and the same conductor, who is out on the platform now, orders them off. This couple, in their twenties, are not getting off. This massive argument breaks out and the conductor calls the cops over and it’s full on. This couple are not getting off and the conductor is doing his block trying to pull their luggage off, it was insane. The train was delayed by at least 15 minutes and in the end the couple were allowed to stay on. So, we finally arrive in Venice and then we had to work out how to catch the N1 water taxi to Santa Maria del Giglio station to meet the lady about our apartment. I had just phoned her and we needed to meet her there in 40mins. We’ve both just about lost the plot at this point and we’ve got no idea where we have to go or what we have to do but we somehow managed to work it out. We get to the Santa Maria del Giglio water taxi station..... no woman. We call her again, twice, and she finally rocks up. At this point its nudging 8 o’clock, none of us have eaten since breakfast, we have been at it for 10 hours and we are not in a happy place. At this point our impression of Italy and all things Italian are not good. We get to the apartment, throw our stuff down and find a restaurant around the corner on a canal. We sit down and thankfully it is a fantastic meal. After that it was a quick look around, back to the apartment and into bed. What a day!

"A very foggy morning in St. Moritz"

"I love train travel..........."

Day 28 Zermatt – St. Moritz:

Today we leave Zermatt and it is with a little sadness because we love this place. The Matterhorn was amazing but the whole place is just fantastic and we will definitely be coming back. We start off by packing the bags and heading down for breaky. By 9:30 where out of there and taking the short walk to the train station to board the Glacier Express. The Glacier Express was one of the main things that the holiday was designed around so this is a big day. With the Glacier Express you can take on board your own food and drink so we have taken a couple of things on for the kids and a roll each for Kris and me. We get going for our 8 hour train ride at 10 o’clock and I’m like a kid in a lolly shop and the views are as expected, spectacular. We get into it full swing and the waiters come down and ask us if we want to order the 3 course lunch at 46CHF ($53) each. We have rolls to eat but we think, were on the Glacier Express, why the hell not so we go the whole hog and order wine as well. The waiters set the table up with the table cloths and silverware and we ate like royalty. This proves to be a fantastic train ride, one that we will never forget. We get to St. Moritz and throw the rolls in the bin. We get to the hotel and head out for a wander and soon realise that this place has shut up shop for the day, it’s like a frig’n ghost town. St. Moritz is one of those places the rich and famous holiday full of shops like Prada and Gucci set on a lake with snow capped mountains at the door step. We think the place is a bit of a bore so we grab some dinner and head straight to bed. The train ride today was a massive highlight but the final destination didn’t impress. Tomorrow we head to Venice, let’s hope that has a bigger impact.

"About to board the Glacier Express"

"Wine time"

"A typical view on board the Glacier Express"

"Another typical view on board the Glacier Express"

"The view from our hotel room in St. Moritz"

"A view over the river to the moutains in St. Moritz"

Currently Ofline

We currently do not have internet access and will be back online on Tuesday. I am not sure why the comments section is not working. I have changed some settings so please keep trying. Kris would like to send her love but have explained that this is purely a technical message.