This year Janet and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary with a special trip.
We had a few days away in Venice, one of the most romantic cities in the world.
The trip had been planned and booked much earlier in the year and I managed to keep the destination secret from Janet until we finally had to show the boarding passes at Lisbon airport.
The day of the trip arrived and we took the early train to Fundão in order to catch the intercity to Lisbon at 08:07. Almost immediately after arriving the platform display showed the intercity train as delayed, this delay increased every couple of minutes and it became clear that the train was stopped somewhere. Once the delay reached more than 30 minutes we became a little concerned, and after 40 minutes we had to go to the station office and find out the problem. We were told that there was an issue with the points outside of Covilhã and there was no expected time for arrival.
Bad news, our 'plane would not wait for us and we simply had to be in Lisbon before 1pm. We decided to cancel the train tickets and catch the bus from Fundão, the bus is slightly quicker but arrives in Lisbon a little further from the airport. Departing at 9:25 and due to arrive at 12:30 we should have sufficient time to travel via the metro to the airport. The scheduled time arrived and passed with no sign of the bus, and the minutes ticked away. Eventually, about 15 minutes late, the bus arrived. Any further delay could seriously jeopardise our entire plan.
We embarked on the bus and were finally on our way to Lisbon. With just one further pickup point at Castelo Branco surely the driver would be able to make up the delay on the highway and get us there on time.
After what seemed like hours we arrived at Lisbon Sete Rios bus station and hurried to the metro station. Two metro journies later we were finally at the airport, and joining the queue for the security screening.
After passing through security we went directly to the gate which was now open. Of course, the boarding was delayed as usual - but we were there.
Once everyone had boarded and prepared to leave there was an announcement to say that one of the tyres was not up to standard and had to be replaced. This resulted in yet another 30 minutes delay.
The mechanics changed the wheel and finally, we were on our way 😃
The flight was quite uneventful until we reached the Northern Italy region, approaching some large storm clouds I was expecting a bumpy ride but the pilot made a number of turns which seemed to avoid all of the bad weather. The landing was much smoother than expected and, after all the earlier events, we were now in Venice.
Our next challenge was to get from the airport to the actual city of Venice where the hotel was situated.
Venice is a city on water, almost all of the travel is by boat and there are water taxis, ferries, and a water bus service running throughout the day. We bought two 15€ tickets for a boat ride to the stop nearest to our hotel and after about 45 minutes of traveling across the sea while watching the lightning storms all around, we arrived and walked to the hotel.
The hotel turned out to be more like a guest house but it was comfortable and the room was well presented, we found a bottle of Prosecco waiting on the table for us - I had already informed the hotel of the purpose of our stay. Our first task was to find some nourishment even though it was now around 9pm, we had not eaten since the light snack onboard the flight. The easiest solution was the local McDonald's so we walked there and had convenience food then returned to the room. Being very tired after a fairly stressful day, getting to sleep was easy.
The next day dawned bright and sunny, arriving in the dark meant that we could not properly see the area where we were staying, just another Venetian street.
Eager to experience all that Venice had to offer we got ready to go out for breakfast and explore.
We walked around for a while and, as it was Sunday morning, some shops we not open but we found a small café and ordered two orange juices, two croissants, and a coffee then sat outside to watch the people crossing the square from all directions. The first shock was the 13€ bill for that snack - it would have been 5 or 6 euros at home in Portugal. But we were on a special holiday so that's fine.
As we found, the whole place is much more expensive than what we are used to but this is readily offset by the amazing views and architecture all around the city.
We walked around each day, exploring different areas and often getting lost. The canal system is the standard way to travel in the city and though there are many pedestrian streets we did sometimes find the way blocked by a canal where the street simply ended and we had to retrace our path.
As mentioned previously, the architecture around the city is stunning.
The churches seem to be the most elaborate like the Basilica di San Marco.
As most will know, Venice is built on a man-made 'island' and evidence of subsidence is seen everywhere.
Here is one of the more obvious examples, no standard door sizes here.
One cannot visit Venice without taking a look and crossing the spectacular Ponte di Rialto, two rows of shops built onto the bridge dividing three walkways and a cross tunnel at the top.
We saw at least three of these 24 hour clocks around the city, perhaps there are more.
A rather confusing array of pointers to indicate the time.
To explore further you have to take to the water and get a water bus or vaporetto, there are many islands around the main city. One of our trips took us to San Giorgio Maggiore with its church and bell tower. There is a lift in the bell tower so reaching the top is easy, even for Janet who is not happy with high places.
From here you can see over the main city.
Another boat trip took us to the island of Lido, a strip of land out in the Adriatic Sea to the southeast of Venice itself. Being 11½ km long and only around 500m wide for most of its length, it is easy to get around. We landed on the Northern side and had a breakfast snack. We then walked along a street to the other side of the island towards the beach. Though it is part of Venice there are cars and other vehicles on the island, we had to re-learn about traffic.
Once at the beach, we walked and walked for about 6km along a headland towards the lighthouse. Upon reaching the lighthouse we found nothing, except for the walk back in the sunshine 😄
This short blog entry does very little to describe the wonder of Venice, you must visit to really appreciate it all, and in five days we were far from seeing everything.
We did have a wonderful wedding anniversary trip, including a superb meal at a top restaurant, a visit to a string concert, multiple boat rides, and a private gondola trip. In addition to all that we walked for many, many miles with no traffic and had a laughable walk past the 'high fashion shops where we might have bought a 3000€ pair of shoes, a 7400€ suit or a five-piece matched set of luggage for our return journey - a snip at just over 60,000€ 😂
We did have one other surprise when I received a text to say that our return flight had been cancelled, with no explanation, but with the experience of our outward journey, this did not really come as a shock. A quick visit to the airline website showed no evidence of the cancellation and the next day when the window for online check-in opened we simply did the process and did in fact receive a message later from the travel agency inviting us to check-in - bizarre!
The actual trip back home was very straightforward and we arrived in Vale de Prazeres almost 12 hours after setting off from the boat stop in Venice.