Bye Bye Venice

Our day started out well enough, the sunrise over Venice made for a beautiful send off. We woke up very early, grabbed the early Vaparetto (water bus), heading to a location near the train terminal where we caught a bus to the Treviso airport.

The Treviso airport is a tiny regional airport used by Ryan Air that has about 10 seats for about 500 people, all with bags, back packs, purses, shopping bags, pillows, and other assorted travel items, all ready to head off to...wherever. To be fair, there was evidence of a new terminal being built that will probably be ready for use sometime within the next decade. Whew.

We flew from Venice to another smaller regional airport in the outskirts of London (Stansted), then took an express train into the heart of London where we had detailed instructions on which lines of the London Underground, or "Tube," to use in order to get us quickly to London Heathrow for our flight home. What transpired sounds like something out of a movie.

At first things went fine, got onto the right line, transferred to the next line, all in keeping with our instructions on getting to Heathrow. However, due to two separate construction projects, as well as a line with a train stoppage due to a signal problem, we were forced to be re-routed two more times! So with only about an hour and a half to spare, Mandy and I were literally and figuratively sweatin' it (it was actually quite hot that day) as we slowly progressed our way to the airport.

We were at one station on the outskirts of town when we heard a muffled announcement about replacement bus service to Heathrow. Almost simultaneously I saw a small sign identifying that stop as the one for said bus service. I made an exclamation to Mandy, grabbed my bags, and hoisted myself out of the train. I turned and saw her, bags in hand ready to join me when the doors slapped shut between us! I'll never forget the scene: both of us staring at each other on opposite sides of the doors, mouths open in total shock. We were separated in London with only about 75 minutes until our flight home!!!

We missed our flight.

Mandy and I hooked up again at the airport; we probably would've made the flight had she not been mis-directed to the wrong terminal. But, oh well. We booked flights home into Vancouver, B.C. instead. It all ended well. A long, tiring, but interesting day(s) - we figured we were awake for over 24 hours.