Austria to Venice

This morning we drove the hire car to Villach around the mountains with the road following the valleys. The view was always spectacular with green meadows splattered with chalets and snow covered peaks rising in the distance. That was my attempt at creative writing!!! We found the hire place in Villach without a map after only one wrong turn that meant we had an unplanned trip around the old town.We then boarded a bus bound for Venice.The 2 hour drive and the 3 and a half hour bus trip resulted in a long weary day that was not helped by a traffic jam on the autobahn created by a semitrailer that had rolled on its side across 3 lanes. We did have the front seats on the double decker bus which was fun. The scenery changed dramatically once we passed the last mountain and for the last part of the trip it was fairly flat and uninteresting. We crossed the water to Venice and another scenery change occured !!!! It was difficult to control the camera which kept popping out at every turn.We got a watertaxi to the hotel which was only 3 stops away and were enchanted by our venician room in the Hotel al Ponte Mocenigo. We hotel had some Rick Steves travel books left by other guests and we found a place for tea which was set in a vine covered garden and served wonderful affordable meals.Thankyou Rick! Joel had bolognaise,Carlie had Carbonara and Jim and I shared a seafood pizza with mussells in shells and prawns and a salad.Venice is a dream come true.