Venice and Croatia
We spent our last day in Greece in Athens wandering around until we had to go catch our flight to Venice in the evening. We managed to catch the changing of the guards at the Parliament buildings which was something interesting and kind of funny to see. The guards have giant pompoms on their shoes and walk very “can-can” style. We spent a few hours at the Archaeological museum that afternoon and then set out to find a Gyro stand that Eero read a good review about. The search for gyros was not successful since both places he wanted to go to seemed to not exist anymore…I guess they must not have been that good after all. On our way back to the hostel we were walking up the main shopping street where they were setting up for a fashion show sponsored by Virginia Slims cigarettes. So they had sample booths where they were giving people a cigarette to sample before giving them a whole pack of cigarettes and a lighter to go with it. I was completely shocked but they do seem to love their cigarettes in Greece where it seems everyone smokes, and with no regard whatsoever to the almost non-existent non-smoking areas.
We managed to get to Venice late that night and the next morning got up to wander aimlessly around the city, since that is what we do best. We stopped to see St. Mark’s Square, where there are signs posted everywhere with about 5 rules on it. It was forbidden to sit on the ground or steps, eat sitting down, were a bathing suit, litter, or swim in the lagoon. What really should have been on that sign was “Do not feed the pigeons” since there were probably at least 500 of them swarming people, some people had at least 10 of them hanging on their arms and sitting on their heads. We thought the square would be better without them flying into your face every couple minutes. Venice was nice and we both had a good time.
After Venice we took the train to Trieste, which was a really nice city where we spent the afternoon while waiting for our bus to Croatia. They had a chocolate festival going on so I was in heaven drinking hot chocolate and having chocolate cake on a stick. We also went to a castle in the city which was interesting since it had a museum about the illegal trade of artifacts (that’s the best description I have for it).
We made it to Dubrovnik, Croatia, by overnight bus through Slovenia and Bosnia, and have been here for the past 2 days. We are staying at a really nice place, Apartment Mateo, where the family who owns it have been very welcoming. Last night we went out for dinner at this really good restaurant, Wanda Restaurant. Since it was their last night for the season, they were out of tap beer and instead we were given a free 1/2 litre of wine, as well as some port and grappa shots to try. The owner was really friendly and the service was good. The food was amazing! Today we walked along the city walls and wandered the old town which is really pretty.
Tomorrow we head to Split for a few days before going to Rijeka to catch our flight to Germany.
