First Installment of holiday updates
Dear All
Sitting in Rome airport waiting for a connection to Venice. Despite dire warnings about delays in getting through customs and finding our luggage in Rome, we ended up walking through in about twenty minutes, which gives us way too much time to be hanging around to get to Venice. Tried to get an earlier flight, with no luck … so coffees and a look through the shops is the order of the day. We may even get a snack, if we can face up to food after what seemed to be about ten meals between Adelaide and Rome!
It’s true - airports all seem to have the same feel everywhere - we had an hour in Melbourne, two in Hong Kong, and now three here … we’re a little bit over airports now.
All the flights so far have been OK - no rough weather, and we’ve caught up on a whole pile of movies we wanted to see (plus a couple we didn’t!) … but we didn’t get a whole lot of sleep. On the HK - Rome leg I got caught next to a guy who seemed to have no idea of personal space, and seemed to take up way more room than his size indicated he should - but I just got to lean closer to Cheryl so it wasn’t all bad!
I suspect we won’t really feel like we’re getting anywhere until we get out of Venice airport and onto the ferry. The hotel we’ve booked is apparently pretty hard to find so I’m hoping we’ve got lots of daylight to look for it - when we get there a shower and nanna nap might come first, then some dinner.
I can’t get wifi in the airport, so this will probably get some more added to it later.
<later>
To add insult to injury the Venice flight was delayed an hour and a half waiting for a spare part, so we spent even MORE time in the airport …
The flight to Venice was uneventful, and we managed to find our way onto a bus to the main island, and a three-day pass for the vaporetti. When we got off the bus at the start of the Grand Canal, we decided that (for the first time) we would put the backpacks on our backs … all I can say is I hope we don’t have to do that too often or for too long :)
We got off at the Rialto Bridge, and there were people everywhere it seemed (although it’s probably a bit quieter than a couple of months ago). Thanks to some detailed directions left in a previous review of the hotel, and a large scale map, we were able to find the hotel - but even knowing where it was, and knowing it was well-hidden, we still managed to walk past it without seeing it … The guy at reception was quite friendly and chatty (I reckon he was angling for an invite to visit us in Adelaide!), but once in the room we stripped off the clothes we’d been wearing for 36 hours and hit the shower …. and, yes, we had the nap. We got up and walked around for an hour or so, exploring the Rialto area. Found a quiet little place for dinner and had pasta and 1/2 litre of local chardonnay (not a lot of wood noticeable!), and we are now crashing!!
We’ve started taking photos now we’ve hit the “real” holiday - you’ll be able to find some of them at http://www.flickr.com/photos/rhayman when I get to uploading them.
<another update>
We’ve spent all today (Tuesday) walking and boating around Venice - took the scenic route through the markets (fantastic - we took photos of food!) and around the back (via the railway station) to Piazza San Marco … there were certainly a lot more people there!
Having spent 5 hours walking, we went back to the hotel (another nap) and then caught a vaporetto to the Lido beach area and back to Rialto - it was a fairly relaxing way to see parts of Venice we probably wouldn’t have got to otherwise. Found some food (Peroni was cheaper here than at the Tivoli!), and some wine (I had a local grape called refosco) and we’re now back at the hotel, which runs a wifi access point for only a small king’s ransom ..
