We both found ourselves up at 4am not able to sleep. After a little internet search to reconfirm the afternoon train to Venice, Carlos watched the BBC on TV and Angel did a search on Tom Burckell’s blog, “Antipasto 4U.” She was looking for a little more information concerning the sites and things he encountered. Both of us went back to bed around 5am and awoke to the cleaning lady at 930am. We had time for breakfast at the hotel and then went exploring down by the waterfront. We found the Naval Arsenal Museum and the Naval Base. We also found the open air market. We quickly strolled through the market and took mental notes of those things we would seek out when we returned to La Spezia. We returned to the hotel to quickly pack and headed out to the train station.
We left La Spezia at 1250pm and we had a three hour ride to Milan, where we boarded another train that would take us to Venice. The first two hours of the trip were along the coast. The terrain is mountainous and the only thing dividing one town from another is the mountains. We passed through countless tunnels and looked at endless apartments and houses of stucco and pastel or faded paints with terra cotta tiled roofs. (We had purchased two olive trees last year and because of that we now know what an olive tree looks like. From the train we could see olive trees speckling the green space in the towns.) The last hour of the ride to Milan was in the countryside. This terrain was for the most part wide open and flat. The towns seemed smaller with what appeared to be houses vice the endless apartment buildings. Though in all of the towns apartments were rising and speckling the skyline. The fields all appeared to be cultivated and in one town there was what appeared to be a canning facility to process the produce. We also saw a supermarket called surprisingly” Supermarket.” So far no “piggly Wigglys” in Italy. Then again, until recently Carlos thought Piggly Wiggleys were only a made up chain of stores mentioned in the movie “Sweet Home Alabama.”
The train station in Milan was a large exchange station. It reminded me of the Harry Potter movie. Our train to Venice boarded on Platform 10, which is about as close as you can get to platform 9 and ¾. No Hagrid anywhere to help us with our bags.
We arrived in Venice where we took a water bus to our hotel. From the outside you would never know this was a wonderful hotel inside. Once we settled in the hotel we decided to venture out and find a place to eat dinner. We chose a place along the canal (this is the first and last time we eat outside next to the canal). For dinner we got a caprese salad that was wonderful, the tomatoes were the brightest red I have ever seen. I had a cheese and spinach stuffed ravioli with a mushroom cream sauce that was very good. Carlos had a four cheese gnocchi that he said was outstanding!! The wine we had with this was also fantastic. For dessert we had cannoli with real whipped cream.
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