"It's amore"!

Hi everyone!

This week we had a week off school for the semester break, and so I made the most of the time off work to explore a country I've never been to before: Italy!

On Tuesday we hopped on a train at 9.30 in the morning, and arrived in Venice at 6.10pm. It was a long journey, but it went fairly quickly with a good book and beautiful scenery. I'm always amazed at how easy it is to travel from Austria!

The hotel was about ten minutes from the train station, and luckily I'd looked up directions before hand because Venice is just full of little winding streets, canals and bridges and it would have been impossible to find otherwise! The hotel was nice, basic but nice :) And naturally when in Italy, pizza and gelato was on the menu for dinner, at a nice little pizzeria just up the road from the hotel.

Wednesday was the first full day in Venice. We headed off on foot to St Mark's Square (Piazza San Marco) via the Rialto Bridge (Ponte Rialto). In St Mark's Square there is St Mark's Basilica and the Doge's Palace, and so we spent the morning exploring these two. Here are a few pictures from this:

The view from one of the many bridges we crossed to get to St Mark's Square

The view from by Rialto Bridge

The view from by Rialto Bridge

St Mark's Basilica 

Unfortunately you can't take photos inside the Basilica or the palace, but they were absolutely beautiful, full of paintings from brilliant Italian artists, and the Basilica was unlike any Church I'd ever seen before.

After lunch at the palace cafe, we went for a walk along the sea front in Venice. The sun came out for us, and the view was phenomenal. I'd not realised how much I missed the smell and the feel of the seaside, and so I was in heaven.

Venice seaside

One of the many canals in Venice

An obligatory selfie with a Venetian canal and gondola!

Wednesday dinner was at 'Osteria ae Cravate' which I would recommend highly to anyone visiting Venice. It was a quirky place with ties from all over the world hanging from the ceiling. The owner and waitress built up a great rapport with all the customers, and the food was amazing. I also managed to convince the waitress I spoke more Italian than I actually do by ordering in Italian...this did come back to bite me in the end though, when she started asking questions in Italian...

Sea food pasta

Panacotta with caramel and warm chocolate pudding

Thursday was boat trip day, and we were luck enough to have beautiful sunshine! A website called viator.com advertised a boat trip to see three islands near Venice called Murano, Burano and Torcello for €18. It was great! The tour guide switched seamlessly between four languages and gave lots of information on the sites we were seeing. The first stop was Murano, an island known for it's glass making. We watched a glass blowing demonstration and then walked up the canal towards the centre of the island.

The second island, Burano, is known for it's leaning church tower, multi coloured houses, and the lace produced on the island.

Some of the bright coloured houses on the island of Burano

The third and final island, Torcello, was my personal favourite. It was quite, scenic and beautiful.

We had a ten minute walk along the canal before we reached the main part of the island

Part of the beautiful island Church

Our return to Venice was just as the sun was beginning to set, and so the view from the boat was stunning.

After our boat tour, we headed off to the train station and got on a train to Verona. We arrived in Verona at around 6.30pm, and after a slight panic that we couldn't get into our hotel (no-one answered the doorbell, it turned out the owner didn't live there himself, but I managed to find a phone number so we weren't stranded!) we got in and the hotel was lovely.

Our one day in Verona was Friday, and so I wanted to see everything! I'd heard great things about the town, and having studied a lot of Shakespeare and loved the film 'Letters to Juliet' I was extremely excited!

We started off with Castelvecchio, a castle and bridge from the Middle Ages.

After Castelvecchio on the agenda was the Arena, a Roman Amphitheatre from the 1st Century and the third largest in the world, and which is still used for performances today.
We were able to get a 'Verona Card', which is €18 for students and gets you into all the tourist attractions in the city for free or for a very reduced rate. You can buy them at all the tourist attractions and it was really worth it, so I'd recommend that too.

Another obligatory selfie in the Roman Arena!

The beautiful fountain and park outside the Roman Arena

Next was Juliet's House, which features the symbolic balcony from Shakespeare's play, and a museum of the history of Juliet. There is a wall, like the one that features in the film 'Letters to Juliet', and inside the museum you have the opportunity to write a letter or email to the secretaries of Juliet, who answer questions on love.

We walked through the Piazza delle Erbe to the church of St Anastasia, which was beautiful. The design of Italian churches is different from Austria, very elegant and often light and airy.

After lunch, we headed over the river on the Ponte Pietra to the old Roman Theatre, which is now in ruins but was built here in the late 1st century BC. This location was chosen due to it being beside the river on a hill, so was easily visible. 

What is left of the Roman Theatre today

The view from the Pietra bridge (Ponte Pietra)

The ruins of the Roman theatre

The duomo (cathedral) of Verona was amazing. In some areas, there are some archaeological excavations which show what the original cathedral might have looked like. It was destroyed in an earthquake, and the Romanesque church that is there now dates back to 1187.  

The striking pink marble columns of the cathedral

After all the exploring, I decided it was time for (more) gelato! A lovely gelateria on the Piazza delle Erbe served waffles with the huge selection of ice cream, and English Breakfast tea, so I was happy!

The final stop of the day was Juliet's grave further outside of the main city centre. This grave is believed to have been Shakespeare's inspiration for the tragic death scene of Romeo and Juliet.

The story of Romeo and Juliet in picture form.

We headed back to Linz on Saturday, exhausted after a long week of exploring, but I had such an amazing time! I loved Verona, and Venice, and the beautiful islands we visited. My first trip to Italy was a great success, and I cannot wait to go back!

Thanks for reading!

Laura :)

A weekend of visitors!

Hello everyone!

Apologies for this blog being slightly delayed, I had some visitors at the weekend and am only now getting around to writing my blog post!

So last week, I went on a little adventure to visit Carissa in Kirchdorf, and it's beautiful there. It was nice to step back into the countryside, and not being constantly surrounded by noise as I am in Linz. Here are a few pictures from this visit...

Carissa and I also went on a traditional Austrian baking course, where we learnt to make various cakes and biscuits that are eaten at this time of year. After getting over the initial understanding nothing as it was totally in dialect, we approached a nice-looking couple of ladies who were more than happy to help us and give us lots of information about what we were making and how to make it! We now have recipes for al of these, which is very exciting, and I'm looking forward to trying some out soon :)

On Friday, my visitors arrived, and I was very excited about it! Mum, Alison and Jen flew into Vienna on Friday night and I went in to collect them. We spent the weekend exploring parts of Austria, so here are some photos and details of what we got up to!

Saturday:

We spent our first day looking around Linz. We went to the New Cathedral and the Old Cathedral, I took them for a look around the Christmas market, and we went for a walk along the Danube river too.

In the evening, we went out for dinner with two of my friends out here, Conor and Emma Cate. It was really lovely for them all to meet, not just so they can put names to faces, but also because they got on so well, and it was nice to bring some of home to Austria :) I also made sure everyone tried the traditional Wiener Schnitzel, and it seemed that everyone loved it!

Sunday:

Our second day was spent in Salzburg. We caught the train over in the morning and our first port of call was the tourist information, where (thanks to Emma Cate's knowledge!) we got tickets for €24 that got us into every tourist attraction in Salzburg, as well as giving us free travel for the day. 

We took the bus into town, and where we got off, we had an amazing view up the river.

First off, we went to Festung Hohensalzburg, which is a castle up on a hill, the highest point in Salzburg, where you get the most amazing views! There was also a small Christmas market in the grounds of the castle, and a few museums and rooms you could go in and look around. 

The next stop was lunch, and Jen and I decided we were going to go full-Austrian and have Bratwürstel with Sauerkraut and Mustard. And it was good!

After lunch, we went to the Salzburg Dom (cathedral) which had lots of stately rooms and beautiful art and Baroque architecture to look at. We did an audio tour of the rooms, and learnt a little bit about the history of Salzburg itself. The city gets its name from its salt mines. Salt (Salz) is the city's most important and prominent exports, and we saw lots of Salzburg salt being sold at the Christmas market. 

Our final stop of the day was the Salzburg Christmas market, which was much bigger and busier that the one in Linz. However, unlike the Christmas markets in the UK, the stalls sell a lot of traditional food, and handmade local crafts and gifts, and so it is lovely to browse, and also a great place to do some Christmas shopping!

Monday:

Our third and final day was spent partly in Linz, buying a few souvenirs and Christmas presents before they travelled home, and partly in Vienna at the Rathaus Christmas market, which was, in my opinion, the best of the weekend. 

After we managed to navigate the underground, we arrived at the Rathaus, but for some reason couldn't find the market. We somehow ended up in a courtyard in the middle of the Rathaus which reminded me a lot of Hogwarts...

But luckily we finally found our way to the Christmas market, and it was well worth the detour! 

We spent some time browsing and shopping for Christmas presents, and treated ourselves to some Kinderpunsch (non-alcoholic punch, traditional at Christmas markets) to keep us warm in the Austrian winter weather!

I was sad to see them go on Monday night, but we had a wonderful weekend, and I loved having them to stay. Plus, I'll be flying home in two weeks today, so it won't be long until I see them again!

Thanks for reading!

Laura :)