3 Country’s in 3 hours.. Europe so small. but packed with things to see

April 10, 2014

Today was a pretty interesting day. Ben of course got up early, not only because he possibly still has jet-lag but because he only needs 5-6 hours of sleep and then he’s just awake. So because he was awake I was awake and we figured we might as well start to slowing pack up our things and get ready to leave and pick up our rental car. For breakfast we ate some of the food supplies we had purchased on our first day and I had a cup of coffee and a blueberry muffin that I had kept from our flight but which no resembled more of a blueberry pancake.

By 8am we were ready to go and it only took us about 15 minutes to get to the Hertz rental place and pick up our car, which turned out to be a brand-spanking-new 2015 Opal with only 9kms on it. 

It had that new car smell and everything and I quickly figured out how to change the controls screen to English. It’s a pretty bottom-of-the-barrel low budget car though; first care I’ve ever seen that has power windows in the front and crank window in the back. But it looks like we’ll get over 700kms to a tank so it’s pretty efficient.

We managed to find our way out of downtown Munich fairly easily despite the morning rush hour traffic. Once we got on the highway and out of the city a little ways, everyone really seemed to open up the throttle and give ’er. The speed limit was 120km/h which we were doing and cars were passing us like we were standing still. From Munich we travelled south for about 2 hours towards Fussen and stopped for almost 4 hours to visit Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau.

I had visisted Neuschwanstein in 2010 with my Mom and Rebecca, but Ben really wanted to see it because it’s in the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and I really wanted to see Hohenschwangau since I had missed seeing it in 2010. They were both so beautiful and full of detailed paintings and intricate carvings (sorry no pics of the inside, we weren’t allowed to take any). 

The last time I visited we went with a tour group and collectively decided to hike up to Neuschwanstein, which is up the side of the mountain. Ben wanted to walk up today and I was like, I don’t think so, we are taking the bus. It was worth every Euro-cent because I would have been super cranky by the top. Also it was trying to rain all day and although it never really opened up and poured, the threat was there and I would have been super pissed if we were halfway up our hike and ended up getting soaked. Crisis averted.

We left the area just before 3pm and headed south towards Austria and the mountains. I didn’t initially realize how close we were to Austria because after only about 20 minutes of driving we had crossed the border. The scenery was spectacular and the road was twisty enough to satisfy Ben’s craving for exciting roads to travel. There were lots of little houses and villages dotted throughout the landscape, in valleys and on the base of the mountains. After only another 2 hours or so of driving we spotted a sign that read “Italia” and suddenly the signage was not as easy for me to read and interpret. Just like that we had gone from Germany, through Austria, and into northern Italy.

Still the scenery was so beautiful through the mountains. Houses climbed up the mountain sides and every square inch of land was utilized and rows of vines were planted amongst the houses. Every so often we would see the crumbling remains of an old castle or keep. Eventually we made our way out of the mountains and into Verona, where we changed direction and headed east towards Venice. We had decided to spend the next couple of nights in a city outside of Venice called Padua, mostly because hotel prices are much cheaper than closer to or in Venice. Because our internet at our Munich hotel was super crap (we only could use 50mb and it was unbelievably slow) we hadn’t been able to scope out hotels before hand, so I used a bit of data on Ben’s phone and chose a hotel at random based on the 1 review someone posted in English.

We ended up at Hotel Giotto and for what we paid for our room, parking and breakfast, we are pretty impressed. Our room is basic but comfortable, we have a huge bathroom, a fridge, and internet (which isn’t working right now but I think that’s because our room is too far away from the lobby, we’ll try to connect tomorrow at breakfast), and the guy working the front counter has been very helpful and friendly. 

He gave us a map of Padua and pointed out all the interesting sights to check out, and we already spotted a super cool looking cathedral that is walking distance from our hotel that we will check out for sure.

By the time we had checked in it was just after 9pm and we hadn’t eaten anything other than our pre-purchased snacks all day, so we were both starving. A couple of businesses down from our hotel was a restaurant that offered 10% off to hotel guests, so we headed over there for some authentic Italian pizza and a well deserved glass (or 2) of wine. It was all delicious and oh so satisfying. Again the pizza wasn’t cut, I guess that’s just the way they do it here (I must not have eaten any pizza the last time I was in Italy because I don’t remember this at all…). Now we are full, tired and feeling a little tipsy and means it’s the perfect time to get a solid night’s sleep and prepare for our next day of adventures, this time in Venice.

For those who are interested, I will keep a count of the number of time we have to pay to use a toilet because apparently the use of a toilet is not a basic human right in Europe. So far:

Toilet Tally = 0 (Yay!)