Woke up early, around 6 am and everyone got ready to go down for breakfast, yes more meat and cheese please. This time we were early, so we got the best selection, once again it was a great start to the day, especially today as we planned to drive all the way to Venice. Finished up breakfast and went upstairs to pack everything up for our departure. We were all ready to go when I realized I only one of the two keys for the bimmer… Ok at this point I have to say I kind of freaked out, since I basically lost this thing the day after I received it and that if the car was stolen and I could only produce one set of keys I would not be covered by the insurance policy thru BMW. I ravaged thru all the luggage, actually started taking it out to the car piece by piece to see if the CA system would activate when the luggage was near….nothing was working. We were down to our final small bags when it hit me, I had placed FOB number 2 in the cell phone holder of my backpack, I never put anything in this spot usually so I never thought of looking there…Ok crisis averted and we were off to Venice.
Now Rolf said that we should put Venice in as a destination and select to “avoid tolls” thru the navi. I did so and it plotted out a route that was east of Innsbruck, I had always planned on going thru Innsbruck but since we will be returning that way I thought what the heck. We proceeded thru the city of Munich and finally we were out of town and on our way. I have to say the navigation system is really cool, anyone who has driven here knows that there are numerous round a bouts, the navi is fully aware of these and tells you exactly which exit to take, even displaying a picture of where to go… this was really helpful, without it we would have gone in a few circles to say the least.
The way the computer sent us thru southern Germany and Austria was really cool, we went thru a slew of small towns and talk about twisties (if it were not for my daughters in the back we would have had some real fun) it was really a fun trip, slow, but fun. I think we hit 5500 feet elevation and we went by at least 4 ski resorts that still had their gondolas running. The road was totally clear of snow or ice and the temperature never went below 34F. If I would have known this route would have taken us up so high I am not sure I would have taken it, as I was avoiding any possibility of snow driving possible, but it was such a cool trip I am glad we took it. I think the same route a week before and we would have been in some serious snow trouble….
I think we went thru Austria and I did not even realize it, the next thing I knew there was an unmanned Italia border gate and a sign that said as much and we were in Italy. I think our first site in Italy was of two police (the military Northern Italian kind) having pulled over a car in front of us bearing machine guns, yeah machine guns… I think I read about this before, but it is a pretty crazy site to see in person, glad we were not the ones who were pulled over or I would have been crapping my pants. Once into Italy we slowly came down in elevation eventually getting all the way down to sea level with the temperature rising to 60F. Once at this level we passed an endless amount of vineyards, the vines were still bare, but they were pretty amazing to see. It seems that everyone had a vineyard and the vines were thick and very old. At this point I also began to experience the oft noted Italian driving style, cars would come up behind me, I would be in the right lane, but the car would be straddling the lines, basically taking up both lanes and then at the last minute would swerve into the left lane to pass me. This was not an isolated incident, it happened quite often and when we exited to go to Venice there was a single lane to make the exit, but the cars were 2-3 wide with people trying to weasel their way in.
Once off the main road we were off to Venice, not too far we encountered the road that goes across the water and brings you to the parking area and the large bus turn around. We had reservations at the Hotel Santa Chiara, this hotel is the only hotel that has a parking lot in Venice and from viewing it on Google Earth I knew where the hotel was, however there were some pretty large signs that said busses only, so I ended up doing a circle and the next thing I knew we were going back the way we came. I flipped a U-turn, as best I could with all the traffic and went back, this time I ignored the signs and navigated thru the 30 or so buses and masses of people to find the hotel parking lot gate. We were able to get up on the curb so we were off the turn around, but the whole area is swirling with people, as it is the main entrance/exit to Venice. My wife jumped out of the car and soon had the gate to the parking lot opened and we were able to park.
Inside the hotel, the man asked for the keys to the car, which I was a bit hesitant to give up with the insurance issue noted above, and all of our passports. I was somewhat wondering what was going on, the man did not explain why he needed any of it, so I finally asked what was going on and in broken English he basically said I need everything and I will give you the passports back at some time in the future. Not knowing what else to do, we went along with this and headed to our room. The room was very interesting, about 10 feet lower ceilings than our last hotel and very rustic, bordering on cheesy, but after knowing Venice a bit more it kind of fits.
We went out for dinner, we ended up going the wrong way, if any way is the wrong way in Venice, and were down a pretty quiet stretch of street. We did find a few restaurants and ended up at the one with the most convincing salesman at the door… FYI probably a good rule of thumb to avoid the restaurants with the hard core salesman at the front… The meal was fairly good, the pasta (both ravioli and spaghetti) were amazing, I made a mental note to myself to order the pasta dishes going forth as it was just amazing food. We also had the house wine and a few fish that the waiter deboned at the table for us. The meal would have been great if we would have lost the fish and focused on the pasta, but it was still decent, but it was also a bit pricey, coming in at over 110 euro…. Later we would realize this is somewhat standard fare, but if you went to more competitive areas you could get the same meal for half.
Headed back to the room and crashed hard, we would have a full day in Venice tomorrow and some serious mask hunting to do.
Notes: the longest tunnel I have ever gone thru was on the trip thru the dolomites
Got up to 128 mph in Germany, car still felt solid
In Italy they make all of the trucks drive in the far right lane (at least that is what it seemed) always thought this would be a good idea, but made for a hellacious traffic jam and some interesting exiting as you had to weave between trucks and could not read the signs
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