Last day then home

Venice Holocaust Memorial

Venice Holocaust Memorial

We had our final hearty breakfast at the hotel with the idea being that we’d not need to eat again until we got our inclusive sandwiches on the flight to Amsterdam. That kind of didn’t work out.

After checking out, we decided to wheel the suitcase around with us rather than leave it at the hotel. There’s a shuttle bus to the airport from Piazzale Roma, so there seemed little point in coming all the way back to Mestre just to grab a bag and walk to the railway station.

We picked up our shuttle ticket from the machine as soon as we reached the Piazzale Roma to save time later. A good job as the machine is very picky about how you insert notes! I think it only likes them fed in one way of the possible four you can insert them.

As usual with no plans we just ambled. Heading for the Jewish area, we found a little art shop where Gill bought a couple of paintings (I swear the new bathroom will be the best-decorated in all of Scotland) and I snapped some photos of the Holocaust memorial. Like so many others I’ve seen, it’s engraved with the names of all the locals who died after being taken away by the Nazis during WWII.

Venice Holocaust Memorial

Detail of the memorial

Time flew over the day. We were due at our bus around 14:45 and spent the intervening time locating little stops we’d not found before, and shopping. Well – Gill shopped, I stood outside guarding the suitcase and reading The Invisible Man on my phone.

Eventually, laden down with souvenirs, we capitulated and stopped for a quick snack. Of ice cream, tea, and strawberry/chocolate crepes. It wasn’t cheap, but it was nice and we left in good time to hop onto our bus for the airport.

The flights back were comfortable (though there was a one-hour delay between Schipol and Glasgow) and we were home a little after 22:00. Full marks to KLM for comfort, in-flight snacks and excellent cabin staff. Marks off for the rubbish “self-check-in” at Marco Polo airport, that confused the hell out of anyone over 40 and caused horrendous queues. It also placed Gill behind me on our final flight instead of next to me – something that likely wouldn’t have happened if a human being had checked us in.

As always, good to be home. Our next trip will likely be Egypt in the summer. I can’t see us being able to fork out for anything else before that!

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Glasgow to Venice (via Amsterdam)

Wetherspoons "cutlery"

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

Dutch graffiti

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.

Marco Polo Airport

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.

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