Dear Wetherspoons - this is NOT a knife

We got to Glasgow airport at 10-ish, with breakfast at the Wetherspoons which was fine aside from being provided with something akin to a spatula with which to cut my sausages and bacon. Our flight to Amsterdam was on time, and in fact we anded early which gave us over 4 hours to run into the city for some food and drinks. Transport tickets are available in the baggage collection area – as we were heading through to Venice we didn’t have to worry about our one piece of luggage as it would be transferred directly onto the next flight.

Amsterdam’s a bit of a maze (with some incredibly artistic graffiti in places), and we wandered for almost the full four hours after getting there on the train. The weather wasn’t great, but it was better to plod around that spend ages at the airport getting bored. We had a couple of beers and found some shops with some very strange battery-operated toys in them. I guess you put them on the table

Pretty pictures

top and the vibrations make them move around. Maybe you’re supposed to get several and have fights with them. Just in case the security at the airport thought they were weapons (some did look very scary), we decided not to buy any for the kids.

Our next flight to Venice Marco Polo Airport was also on time, comfy and well tended with drinks and snacks and we landed a few minutes ahead of schedule. It was still late in the evening, but the public transport runs to the flights so we had no trouble getting one of the shuttle buses to our hotel. Don’t bother queueing for the ticket machine in the arrival hall – there are loads of others outside, which we discovered later. €3 will get you a bus to various destinations. We were heading for Mestre railway station, a short walk from the Hotel Dolfino, to which our nice bus driver gave us directions.

Big glowing balls

The hotel itself was pretty nice, although the room was way too hot when we got in. Also, the wi-fi, despite having a good signal, seemed to be connected to a dial-up modem which dropped out every 30 seconds making the free internet rather pointless. A shame, as otherwise we really enjoyed staying there. Friendly staff, excellent buffet breakfast and a lovely meal on the Monday night. It’s also ridiculously convenient for buses to Venice City and they sell tickets at reception for buses and boats.

After a quick drink from the bar, we unpacked, settled in, watched Roadhouse in Italian (why? WHY?!) and zonked out for the night.