We began the morning with a little self-guided tour of the old town of Rijeka and discovery an excellent coffee place off one of the main streets. The weather was still chilly and a powerful wind picked up, but hey… at least there was no rain.

We'd be driving up the coast, enter Slovenia briefly, and then cross into Italy on our way to Venice. Italy requires travelers to show proof of a negative COVID test so we went to a testing center to get a rapid test. The place was a mad house of activity with parking hard to find, people in full biohazard type suits, lines of people, and for me, was the first time I truly felt there was a pandemic still going on just do to the feeling of the place. We passed our tests (err.. Failed since it’s a negative result?) and headed off to Italy where they didn't even ask for proof of a negative test. Oh well. I guess it wasn't a complete waste of time since my parents needed proof of a negative test for their flight back to the states soon.

We stopped at the town of Trieste, Italy to break up the 3 hour drive to Venice where we battled a fierce wind walking around the city. Due to its proximity to Austria, there is a large influence of Austrian culture there and we discovered a traditional Austrian style lunch spot that Mom wasn't a fan of since the lunch was pretty much just a tray of a variety of meat, including the tongue of a cow! We washed it down with a beer before hitting the road again.

Once near Venice, we dropped the rental car off at the airport (ya know, since you can't drive in Venice unless the car would turn into a boat James Bond style) and took the train into town. Our Airbnb host met us near the train station and led us through a maze of canals, bridges, and streets before arriving at our place, which included a balcony overlooking a canal.

We were exhausted from a long day of travel so we found a pizza place for dinner and topped it off with a gelato desert on the way home. Considering Venice is hyped up to be a city overwhelmed by tourists, it was odd (and special at the same time) to see the city at night be so quiet and calm; it felt like we had the place to ourselves.

We finished our night by watching the last two episodes of season two of Ted Lasso (highly recommend by the way) before calling it early to rest up for a big day tomorrow.