Even with cutting out Abbey Road we were running late. Our flight was scheduled to leave the London Gatwick airport at 7:50 p.m. According to their website people on European flights need to arrive 3 hours before hand. I’ll be honest, I thought that was a little ridiculous – but I was not 100% sure on what we would all need to do since we were flying to another country. But I made the executive decision that if we planned to be two hours earlier it would probably be fine. The train from Victoria Station took about 35 minutes. There were trains that left at 5:17, 5:21, 5:30, but then not again until 5:49. In order to get to the airport 2 hours early we really needed to be on the 5:17 train, but figured as long as we were on the 5:30 p.m. train we would be okay.
It was just a little before 5:00 p.m. when we got back to Victoria station from the Harry Potter wall which meant we had about 30 minutes to go back to the hostel (a good ten minute walk each way) get our luggage, walk back to the station, buy our tickets and get on the train. Walking back felt so long and we were booking. We got back to the hostel and quickly grabbed our luggage. We then had to lug it back to Victoria station, which was a farther walk than it had been on the way to the hostel. It was not a lot of fun trying to hurry while carrying/pulling our luggage. We arrived back at the station with about 10 minutes to buy tickets and get on the train. Of course there was a line to buy tickets and then there was an issue with my credit card and it took forever for the transaction to go through. Thankfully the train was at the closest platform and we were able to get on the train with a minute to spare.
The train – called the Gatwick Express was not very fast, we were kind of laughing at the how slow we were going, but it was nice, after a long day of walking to have some down time. The train station is at the south terminal and we had to take a shuttle to the north terminal. When we finally got to the British Air check in the whole area was completely empty. There was no line, one lonely person working at the counter, we walked right up and checked in. Long story, (stay tuned it will come up soon.) but I was really concerned about the weight of my luggage, so the guy at the counter was really nice and let me weigh everything. From the check in we headed over to the security and again there was hardly any line.
I found it very interesting going through security out side of the U.S. I fly pretty frequently and have a whole system down: my one quart sized bag filled with toiletries none of which are over 3 ounces. That bag goes in the first bin, followed by my shoes and fleece in the next. The my carry on bag – if I am traveling for work, my carry on is my laptop bag, so the laptop is in the bin following, if not for work then just the bag, then in the rear is my travel purse. At this point it is all second nature. But in the U.K. they had different, less restrictive policies. One being you didn’t need to take your shoes off. As I went through security they took my back pack, which had my allergy medicine in it and they pulled me aside. They took a swab of the bag and tested it for something, I am assuming drugs. Me being me, I said something about oh, I have my medicine in there – and told them what it was. The test came back negative for whatever they were looking for and I was good to go.
Once we got through security it was about 6:30 p.m. and we had an hour and a half to kill before we left. Good thing we did not come 3 hours early! We looked around in the shops, I bought a magnet. We then went up to the food area and split a sandwich for dinner. I can’t remember if they didn’t announce the gate until 30 minutes before boarding or if they didn’t open the gate until then, but I know we could not get to there for a while. When we were finally able to go to the gate we had to go down to the lower level and went to this waiting room. Where we sat and waited. Once they started boarding the plane Shan and I both used the rest room and then got on the plane touching it, Shannon's ritual before we got on. We settled into our seats and we were on our way to Italy.
The flight was relatively uneventful, I read and dozed – what I usually do on planes. At one point I was looking out the window and saw a city below us. I said to Shannon, I think we are flying over Paris. We both pull the skymall magazine to find the flight route and from the map we thought it could be. A few minutes later the pilot announced we were flying over Paris – I kind of laughed – I totally called that one. Now I can say I saw Paris. The other notable part of the flight was when they serve the drinks. I ordered my last diet coke until we got to the ship. When the flight attendant handed me the can, it was the smallest can I had ever seen. It was about 3-4 inches high and 2 inches in diameter. I had to take a picture of it. Here it is next to a normal plastic glass.
The flight was about 2 hours long, but Italy is an hour ahead of England, so when we landed it was about 11:00 p.m. As I mentioned earlier, one of my concerns on this trip was going through customs so late in Venice. It ended up being the biggest joke. The customs official looked half asleep as we walked by and didn’t even ask to see our passports. I guess Italy is not so concerned about their boarders. They will let anyone in. Our luggage arrived quickly and I could not believe it, we actually earlier enough to catch the last bus of the evening to the campground where we were staying.
Yes I did say we were staying in a campground in Venice. Finding a place to stay in Venice was quite a challenge. Since we were going to be there such a short time, flying in pretty late and the airport was on the mainland, to me it made the most sense to stay closer to the airport, this decision especially made sense once we found out we needed to fly out of Venice instead of taking the train. When I went to search for hostels in this area these campgrounds kept coming up. For those of you who know me well, you know that my idea of roughing it is no room service and I have never slept in a tent. So a campground was the last place I would want to stay. But these camp grounds are not the typical American campground. They actually have trailers they have converted into hotel rooms – two per trailer you can rent along with cabins and house tents. In the area there were 3 of these type campgrounds and I did research on all of them to see which ones had the best reviews. The one we decided to stay at was Plus Alba D'Oro Camping and rent a room in a trailer since that included a bathroom in suite. I know Shannon was not at all thrilled about here, but after doing all the research I thought it would be fine.
From the airport, we got on the bus and there was actually another couple going to the campground as well. The campground was just a few minutes away and we got off and went to check in. The guy at the check in did not speak English that well and I had learned a limited amount of Italian. He gave us the keys to number 3 and pointed to an area across the street from where the registration building was. We walked in that direction and tried a path that went behind this building but the path dead ended into a fence. So we turned around and went to walk behind the building the other way. Next to the building is a café and the pool, so it was quite a ways around. On the way around we saw a trailer with the number three, but since it was not where he had pointed we kept walking. When we made it around the buildings we could not find a cabin #3 so we walked back the other way and could not find it that way either. Did I mention we had all our luggage at this point and we were lugging it all around. Then we walked back to the trail #3 and tried it, but the key did not work. Oh one other thing to mention, it was almost midnight at this point and dark out. We walked to another section where another type of trailer were and tried the number 3 there as well, that one did not work either. Shannon then decided to go back to the registration building to ask where to go and I stayed with the luggage. It was pretty busy up there so again the guy pointed across the street from the registration. So Shannon came back and we walked back that way once more. We finally found cabin #3, but it was total disaster – it was being used as a storage facility and again the key did not work. Shannon was not happy at this point, so she again went back to the registration building. I decided to move our luggage away from the cabin to over towards the intersection of a couple paths since we would need to go that way. A few minutes later some guy comes up to me and says let me help you with the luggage, I was hesitant – I didn’t know who he was. In his limited language he told me he was going to bring me to our room. I figured I had nothing to lose at this point and didn’t know where Shannon was, so I let him take Shannon’s suitcase (sorry Shan :)) as we were walking back we found Shannon and they brought us in the building across the street, the one we had walked around numerous times, thinking it was part of the café/community room area. It ends up there are rooms in there and that we had been upgraded to one of those rooms. They just failed to tell us. So here we are after wandering around for about an hour finally getting to our room. At this point we had no idea what to expect and just wanted to get in. It ends up our room was great, talk about being surprised.
Here is the room.
Two beds, a double…
And a single.
The wardrobes on the left and the door.
The bathroom was new and clean and great!!!
While the room in Venice was great, my feet were not doing so well. As I mentioned before, I am so not used to wearing tennis shoes. In fact I was still wearing sandals all the time back home when we left, so I was not even used to wearing socks and shoes – it had been what 5 months since I wore socks on a regular basis. Add to that being in flat shoes, the amount of walking we were doing, and not drinking enough water – it was a recipe for disaster for my poor feet. Once we got to our room I took my shoes off and my feel were covered in blisters and so sore. My right pinky toe had a blister that was as big as the toe itself. I took a picture of it.
Since it was late and we had another busy day a head of us, I took a shower and went to bed. Venice in the morning.
Here is the building were we stayed – after walking around how many times?
We then caught a shuttle that brought us to Venice. We did not have much of a plan for Venice, we were just going to wing it. I wanted to take a gondola ride and just experience the city. Of course we were going to hit up the touristy spots, but with it being Sunday, many things were not open, or did not open until the afternoon and we had a 6:00 p.m. flight to catch. In case you keeping track here – yes we did fly three days in a row. So we decided to wonder around with out any specific itinerary.
A black one 
Two bridges intersecting 
We found this picturesque bridge and took some pictures.
My far shot 
Shannon close up
Me close up. 
I should probably make a note now that I was not feeling great most of the time in Venice, between my feet that were a mess, being over tired from the craziness of the previous few days, and just not eating right or drinking enough, my head was killing me for the first half of the day. This is one of these details I had forgotten all about, until I went back and looked at the pictures. I look like crap. It is pretty evident that I just don’t feel good at all.
Here is one of the pretty glass lights 
While we were walking a lady asked us to take her picture on a bridge, we were happy to do that for her and she took one of us in return. 
Some people walking down a cute little ally. 
A cute window sill 
A monument for Leonardo Da Vinci
Some of the cute little canals 
Another bridge 
Gondola’s galore!! 
Here are some up close pictures of one of the ornate gondolas 
Our intent was to go to St. Mark’s Square first, but we ended up along the grand canal near the Rialto Bridge so we went there first.
Here is the Rialto Bridge 
This is the inside of the bridge – 
There are little shops on either side of the bridge 
This is the grand canal near the Rialto Bridge 
Here is a gondola on the Grand Canal. 
