#BeaumontTravels: Germany + Italy, Summer 2018: Day 5

Greetings from Verona,

Wow Day 5 - our trip is half over.

Today is the long travel day. We are driving from Munich, Germany through Austria to Venice, Italy.

Our day started early: breakfast at 6:30, bags out at 7:30, and depart by 8:00.

Breakfast was the same as yesterday, a continental breakfast plus eggs and sausage, only this time brown sausage patties. After breakfast, we boarded our coach for a 2-hour drive through the Alps to Innsbruck, Austria. What an amazing drive, not a cloud in the sky and the beautiful mountains on either side of us.

We arrived in Innsbruck around 10:30 where we took a short walking tour through Old Town to the Swarovski Crystal Gallery. This was really a glorified bathroom stop because at the gallery the restrooms are free. That is a big deal because most of the restrooms charge between 30 cents and a Euro to use. The gallery was not a big hit with our girls, other than using the bathrooms they looked around a little and then were ready to move on. We walked around the city center where there were a lot of little shops and bakeries surrounding a plaza. There was a local street band playing and it felt good to be out of the coach moving around. After about a half hour we all met by the Golden Roof, Innsbruck’s most famous landmark. Then another walk to another plaza where our bus could come to pick us up.

So back on the coach for our 4-hour drive to Verona. This drive was even more beautiful than the first stretch because the mountains are much higher and more majestic. We had a shot bathroom stop in Northern Italy before driving the rest of the way to Verona.

Verona is most famous as the site of Romeo and Juliet’s famous love story. It is also known as Little Rome because it was such a beautiful city with so many landmarks from Ancient Rome. But the girls didn’t care about

that- they wanted to see Juliet’s balcony. So we walked from the parking lot passed many important buildings, like the arena (see attached picture) to get to Romeo and Juliet’s home. When we got close we gave everyone 20 minutes to get gelato (ice cream) before we went to see the famous balcony. After about 30 minutes in the small courtyard outside the balcony, the girls were thrilled, we walked back to our coach.

Our driver Horst was waiting and we started the final leg of our journey, an hour and a half drive to our hotel.

We were supposed to arrive for dinner at 6:00, but we were a little late. At 6:45 we pulled in and went straight to dinner because they had another group scheduled after us. Dinner was very good: pasta with a meat sauce, a salad, and flan for dessert.

After dinner, we took our luggage off the coach and checked into our rooms. Silvana asked us to come back down to the lobby to play a game - so both groups did.

She passed around a big bag of gummy bears and told us to each pick out 3 making sure they were different colors. Then she would pick a color and anyone who had that color had to answer the same question like “what is your favorite place” or “what is your favorite hobby” etc. It was fun and it gave a chance to meet the people in the other group. After the game, the students went up to their rooms while the teachers and Silvana stayed down and talked for about an hour. They all headed off to bed while Sheila and I stayed up and worked for another hour. Then off to bed for us since breakfast will come early, 7:00 so we can spend our day in Venice.

Talk to you soon,

Bob