Wanderung 19

Meandering the Mediterranean

Cruising the Eastern Mediterranean

April - May 2009

Sunday, May 3rd, 2009: A morning in Venice, Italy and a long trip home.

Bob:

We awakened to glorious sunshine. The prospect of seeing Venice in the morning sun was just too good to pass up, so after a quick and meager breakfast (at least compared to cruise ship fare!) at our hotel we set off to further explore Venice. For the morning we chose to examine the part on the main island directly South of our hotel.

Being a Sunday morning, all the shops, restaurants, and kiosks were closed. Very few people were about and there were few, if any, boats on the canals. One side effect of seeing Venice in that quiescent state was that even some of the bigger canals had the calm, unruffled surface that created perfect mirror-image pictures of the old, curious and colorful buildings bordering each side. Such pictures are much beloved by photographers like us.


 

Working our way South into the University district, we followed the signs for the Academia Bridge, which is the last one to cross the Grand Canal before its mouth by St. Mark's square. The bridge turned out to be an wood-braced affair, still graceful but not nearly as picturesque as the famous Rialto Bridge that spans the middle section of the Grand Canal or many of the other smaller stone bridges that cross the smaller canals. We took our final pictures of the Grand Canal and sadly said good-bye to Venice.


 

Just past the bridge was the former church, where Helga and Monika had listened to a Vivaldi concert last time we were all in Venice (Wanderung 10), a very pleasant and unique memory. But now we had to start weaving our way back because we thought we should leave plenty of time to get to Venice's Marco Polo airport. So we hustled back to our hotel past the picturesque churches, limpid canals, and gracefully arched bridges that Venice is so richly endowed with.

We checked out and rolled our luggage over to Piazza Roma where we caught the express shuttle out to the airport (3 Euro each). Had I known how quick the bus ride was (20 minutes), and how long we would have to wait at the airport before they even opened a ticket counter to process our flight (well over an hour), I would have taken my time getting back to the hotel and taken more pictures of Venice! As it was, we checked out shortly after 10, arrived at the airport before 11, and then cooled our heels (and butts!) on some stone benches outside until the ticket counter finally opened for our 1:30 flight flight to London Heathrow. In general, getting to flights in Europe with just an hour or so to spare seems to be plenty rather than the 2-3 hours that is recommended in the U.S.

The fight to London took us directly over the central massif of the Alps, and the snow-capped mountains looming over the dark valleys was an awe-inspiring sight. We were fortunate that our flight terminated at British Airway's new Termianl 5, which was the same terminal from which our flight back to the U.S. departed. Despite staying in the same terminal, we had to process once again throught he security screening but fortunately that took only a few minutes.

Our flight back across the Atlantic Ocean was diverted southward to avoid strong headwinds, so we did not take the Great Circle route back. That longer southern route took us about 8 hours total flight time, which is a long time to sit scrunched up in Economy class! But finally we arrived at Dulles, checked through immigration, retrieved our baggage (which was all there!), checked through U.S. Customs, and then took a taxi home. Our house was still standing and we quickly turned everything back on and collapsed into bed for the night. I've got to say, we really enjoyed "Meandering the Mediterranean" and I hope you get a chance to do the same some day!

Copyright 2009 by R. W. Holt and E. M. Holt
Index
Prolog Map of Transatlantic Cruise Map of Northern Italian Bus Trip Map of Eastern Mediterranean Cruise

April 2009
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
1 2 3 4
5 6 7 8 9 10 11
12 13 14 15 16 17 18
19 20 21 22 23 24 25
26 27 28 29 30
May 2009
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
1 2
3 4 5 6 7 8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
24/31 25 26 27 28 29 30

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