Afternoon walking tour and gondola ride. This afternoon we went on an organised walking tour of San Marco and on a short Gondola trip. The walking tour took us through some of the areas of San Marco whilst the tour guide provided us with information on the history of the city, how the people lived and took us past some of the landmarks and unusual buildings in the City. The only down side of the tour was the group size. In the narrow streets of Venice, it was ...

First Impressions of Venice Waking up in the City Of Venice I decided to take an early morning walk before the crowds started appearing. My first impression of the city was that you could see the grandeur that once was but the entire city was looking a bit run down and drab. The other thing that stood out was the amount of rubbish and litter on the streets. There were people cleaning up, but the sheer volume of rubbish made the city look untidy. After breakfast...

The scenery from Innsbruck to Verona was magnificent. We travelled through part of the Austrian and Italian Alps. The train traveled along the valleys with steep hills on either side. Some photos have been added.

Train Journey to Venice We departed Budapest at 8.20am this morning on a 15 hour, 4 train, 3 country train journey to start the Italian part of our holiday. The journey today takes us from Budapest to Vienna, change trains to Innsbruck, change again to Verona and then the final change on to Venice. The PKP Intercity Train was functional but not overly clean. Hopefully the next few trains are better. Still way more comfort and space than flying. Our next train...

Budapest Day 3 Our last day in Budapest started with a sumptuous breakfast in the hotel bistro. The weather this morning had turned rainy again so we set off for Parliament with our umbrellas once again deployed. We arrived at Parliament and we were looking forward to going through the the building. Unfortunately though, you can only visit the building by going on a tour. The next English language tour was over two hours away so we decided to move on. Our next ...