German city night line trains are a great way to save time when travelling. We always book the first class cabin with shower and toilet – now don’t get too excited – this is not five star accommodation by any means – One person has to climb up the ladder to get to the top bunk. The shower/ toilet combo has a basin that swings over the toilet so you can use the shower and vice versa. You also have a button to press that operates the shower for about a minute at a time. And the breakfast, like most train food) is nothing to write home about – a pre-packaged brioche, stale roll with liverwurst or jam and an awful coffee. But you do get to sleep lying down and cover a distance that on a high speed Ice train would take at least five hours during the day.

I booked almost all of our train passes and reservations online this trip, except for the Euro City train from Munich to Venice, which I had to book through Rail Europe and have mailed to me. Unfortunately they didn’t have reservations available for the directly connecting train so we had to spend four hours in Munich after a night on the train. Dan wasn’t feeling so well so we first wandered to the park and sat for a while. It looked like a (slightly prettier) Darwin Park, with homeless people camped out across the lawns. We saw the polizei dealing with some kind of dispute and decided to head back toward the tourist information centre to see if there was somewhere nearby to look at. Unfortunately as it was Sunday, they didn’t open until 10am, only a short while before our departure just after 11. We tried to jag entry to the Deutsche Bahn first class lounge but apparently as we were foreigners travelling on a pass, we were only entitled to entry to the foreigners section which was a bunch of chairs in a filthy and hot lino floored room. We headed to the coke café where they serve coke and ice cream. I just had a water. After the tourist bureau opened and I picked up the information brochures, we discovered the BMW museum was in Munich. Needless to say Dan was a bit disappointed we weren’t staying. (Stain – Narco Wendy – the garage band our friends put together in the early 90s (originally called the Killer Dolphins) – this is one of their best tunes – recorded, available on Canberra compilation Legoland Strikes Back and performed at the (now well defunct) Terminus Bar.)

It turns out the Munich to Venice tickets were in a six seat compartment where all the other tickets were sold – the people were nice – an American couple on what appeared to be their first (well researched) trip to Venice and a German couple who travel every second year for the Biennale – but it was quite close and felt a bit crowded. What you do get to do on this route is pass through the Alps, in this case through Austria. Last time I had travelled from Germany to Italy I went through Switzerland and it was in the winter. The Alp[s look very different in the summer – although the houses look exactly like you see in fairy tales, the lush green grass, various fruit trees growing on the hillsides and the occasional mountain blooms were a new treat in the warm, snowless summer – although there was still a dusting of snow on some of the higher peaks. Then there was the mountain summer resort with visitors lazing around a pool in bikinis with pool toys – not the sort of summer activity you find in the Australian Alps at all. When we neared Italy and the scenery got less impressive, I spent some time in the dining car, enjoying a coffee and some peace and blogging. The compartment really wasn’t conducive to blogging as only the window seats (which we didn’t have) were equipped with power and tables. The American couple by the window were happy to have our chargers plugged in though. The train stopped in the middle of nowhere about an hour out of Venice. Our compartment mates speculated that it was because of the overuse of the brakes coming down the mountain and the fact that it was such a hot day. The locals all came out of their houses to watch what was going on. Eventually the train got moving again and we arrived in sweltering Venice. We decided to forgo the crowded Vaporetto (ferry) and walk to the hotel with our rolling luggage – it was quite simple and direct to get there (highly unusual for Venice where the well-worn path to the Rialto Bridge and San Marco square are signposted on the wall every 100 metres or so. Of course that was after we negotiated the Indian porters with their carts and the multitude of Italians trying to sell you some ticket or other. The rumour about rolling luggage being banned – google told us so – but it was very hot on the journey to our fairly swish hotel – the Carnival Palace and when the doors opened we were greeted with wet towels, a smile and a burst of air-conditioning. (Home – Skunkhour – a bit of a traveller’s tale about returning home after too long – not really how I feel after less than two weeks away but I haven’t heard this track in a decade or so and forgot how much I actually like Skunkhour – doing that funky thing before it was a thing.)

The room lived up to the photos which was fabulous (and largely unexpected. It was a four star hotel but the beautiful large marble bathroom with oversized walk-in shower and bidet, some five star touches like slippers and large bath towels, and a few luxe finishes and some flair made it feel like a luxury suite. After our long journey, we chilled out in the room to prepare for an evening out amongst it.