Finally, the rest of the photos

It's taken me a while, but here's the rest....

Venice
By the time I got to Venice, I was almost exhausted. I had taken the first train of the morning out from Florence, and arrived in Venice just before a cruise ship let off it's passengers, which meant it got very crowded very quickly. I had about twelve hours in Venice total, which I discovered later was probably just right.

I spent most of my time walking around Venice. The main walking path is lined with shops and full of tourists, so I wandered off on my own in another direction. The nice thing about Venice is that no matter which way you go, you can't get too lost, because the town isn't that big, and there's really only three main bridges that go across the Canal. Of course, there are about 400 other bridges, but that's not too many.... ;)

I left Venice that night, taking the overnight train back to Munich. From Munich, I stowed my stuff in a storage locker and hopped a train to Salzburg, Austria.

Salzburg
Salzburg is a beautiful town. I only had five hours in Salzburg before I had to get back to Germany, so I opted to do a tour bus around the town so I could see the sites quickly without walking around. The gardens in Salzburg are wonderful to walk around. Parts of the movie "The Sound of Music" were filmed in Salzburg, and many of the places I wandered around looked familiar. :) I didn't have nearly enough time in Austria, and it's definitely a place I hope to return to in the future to spend more time.

From Salzburg I took the train back to Munich, ran to get my stuff out of storage, and then jumped back on another train to return to Frankfurt. After waiting nearly an hour for my hotel shuttle to finally show, I finally arrived, very tired, around 20:00, right in time to drop my stuff in my room (after three attempts to get the room key to work, which it never actually did) and go down to the restaurant to get some dinner and watch the Austria-Germany soccer match. Having just come from Austria, and being in Germany, it was great fun to watch the game, my last in Europe, with a bunch of crazed German fans. The match was of great importance for Germany - a win or a tie meant that Germany would continue on to the next round, whereas a loss would knock them out of it. I was tired enough that I don't entirely remember what the final score was (2-1 I think?), but I definitely remember the fireworks that went shooting off shortly after the game ended. And the celebration in the streets (which I didn't see, but I heard).

It was a great trip, even with my variety of medical maladies throughout the journey. A trip that was long enough for me to forget the names of a few of my coworkers, but not long enough to forget the passwords on my computer, so I guess that's a good length. I now have a list of places I want to go back to, explore further, or just hang out in for a bit. :)