Europe: Innesbruck to Venice

[seldear]

Met bellalarina today, had lunch, lost track of time, ended up having to race through the Castle Museum (and past all the really interesting bits, like the history and detail of the English Civil War) because it was closing in 20 minutes. :( But the meeting and afternoon itself was fantastic.

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One of the things we did at Innesbruck was look around the next morning. We saw the house with the gold roof, a place that was built as a mausoleum to an Austrian Emperor but never did (since he fell out with the city burghers when he wouldn't pay his bills) and...assorted other bits and pieces.

I think I'm getting a bit vague on Innesbruck, actually.

The view out over my hotel room window. Note the mountain. And this was a 'distant' mountain, as compared to others that loomed a lot more loomingly!


...like these ones


Some kind of triumphal arch. *sigh* I no longer remember what it was for, but it was on Maria Therese Strass.


A painted 'windowbox' on a church wall.


Um. Some kind of commemorative pole? I give up. You're just going to get random photos after this.












I think this might be the House With The Golden Roof, actually.


Ah, yes. It's not actually gold, I think. It's gold-painted copper. Or something. They couldn't afford that much gold. There were bas-relief plaques beneath the balcony (where the royals appeared during...um...their visits to Innesbruck?) but I don't remember what they were about.


Colourful houses.


Winter Wonderland at the Swarovski crystal shop in Innesbruck. Three stories of crystal. And all of it very expensive. Possibly more expensive than it would be in Oz. Crazy.


We got on the road, headed for a stop in Verona and then on to Venice. Observe the difference between the mountains of Austria and the state of Italy. Much lower and warmer and more colourful.










Daniel and the mountains and the vineyards at the stop we made for lunch. The sun was a beautiful, beautiful thing.








Verona was a stop of no more than a couple of hours - probably closer to 90 minutes. They'd left parts of the old city wall up, but torn down others to let the cars through. I can't remember if the walls were originally Roman or just imitation Roman.








This is The Arena. I can't remember how old it is - Roman or psuedo-Roman. But they have outdoor concerts in it these days every summer, starting with Aida. Why Aida? I don't know.




Colour and sunshine!








"Juliet's Balcony" in Verona. It's actually of the wrong era for Shakespeare's Juliet, but the whole concept of the play was inspired by two warring parties in Verona - except that the differences were religious and political and certainly wouldn't have been solved by the marriage of a couple. In fact, they'd probably have only gotten worse! Still, the area was picturesque and one could certainly imagine an adolescent Romeo climbing a tree that might have stood close to the balcony.

There's a statue of Juliet, just on the edge of this picture. I didn't bother taking a photo - the statue wasn't very inspiring, and her right breast is all shone to gold from people groping her! Takes some of the romance right off it, doesn't it?






Daniel in Verona Square, where there was a market going on.








There are six statues of Roman gods and goddesses along the top of this building. I don't know if you can see them very well in the close-ups, but they were lovely carvings!




Several narrow Verona streets.




And now we're off to Venice!


You can't drive in Venice since the city is pretty much built on a bunch of swampy islands into which the original locals tended to flee every time a set of invaders came along. Somewhere along the way someone thought, "hey, why don't we actually build here?" At which point they went about trying to work out how to actually reach bedrock waaaaay down below. They sunk posts way down into the swamp beds and then built on the posts. So, really, Venice is the ultimate in 'reclaimed land'. Except the land isn't really 'reclaimed' - it's borrowed. And the sea is taking its property back, inch by slow inch, and charging interest in the form of what's been built on the land.

There's a causeway that leads to a drop-off point where buses and taxis can be taken. The sun was setting, and I got some (slightly blurry) pics of the sunset sky reflecting off the water.






Since you can't drive in Venice, they have this drop-off point where people and luggage are unloaded, and then you start into the city along the paths and canals of Venice.

We arrived in Venice and went for a gondola ride first-thing. It was at this point that the woman I'd been friendly with pretty much dumped me and went off with some other people. Which wasn't a particularly pleasant feeling on top of the sore throat and running nose that was bothering me day and night.

Bitterness aside, the gondola ride wasn't bad - it showed a few 'back alleys' of the city that we'd never have seen, and although our 'driver' wouldn't sing for us, we cheerfully sang ourselves. Song of Australia and Row, Row, Row Your Boat. Didn't get very far on the 'round' part.

Daniel and one of the decorations on the boat. This was all I could manage since the light had almost completely faded by the time this photo was taken.


And if the pictures in this section were pretty average, the pics of the next day (our full day in Venice) are spectacular! We had awesome weather - everything was great!

Of course, it rained on the way out of Venice. But that's the day after the next day and I shouldn't borrow trouble. :)

Comments

[arrietty.livejournal.com]

Fantastic photos - I remember seeing the balcony when I was 8 years old. looking at your photo it is from the same angle that my memory works and it looks the same. I tell ya - that was a looooooooong time ago ;)

Thank you for sharing.