We fly to Venice this afternoon at 3.10pm. So we got up early and packed our bags and got the 9.15am shuttle into the city. We wanted to go and see the Sagrida Familia, the famous cathedral designed and built by Gaudi. We caught the train and 20 minutes later we were there. As we walked out of the station it was behind us. The crowds were everywhere. We didn’t buy tickets on line after our last experience so we just looked around the outside. Gerard took some photos and we have a book that shows much of the inside. We didn’t have a lot of time anyway as the only suitably timed shuttle back to the hotel is at 11.30am. The entry fee was 15 euro which meant you would want to spend quite a bit of time there. We caught the train back to the port and had a cuppa and croissants before heading back to the Hotel on the shuttle.
We could have stayed in Barcelona for a week and still not seen it all. It is a lovely, bright city, full of energy, easy to get around and welcoming to all tourists. This is definitely a comeback to place and stay a while, we love it.
Back at the Hotel we packed our bags and caught the shuttle to the airport, we were a little concerned because we couldn’t check in on line last night, so we arrived early and checked in and everything was cool! I had rung webjet the night before and so I knew everything was going to be ok, but you just like to have extra time up your sleeve. The airport at Barcelona is great too, so spending time here is not really a chore.
We got to the airport and you would never guess, even though we had British Airways tickets the flight was actually with Vueling. Yes, Vueling, the never fly with them company! Anyway we had no choice and things were looking pretty good until we sat in the plane on the tarmac for ages. It turned out, of course, we were about 40 minutes late into Venice. We crossed the Mediterranean and then we flew right across Italy. The views were just great, and we probably flew over where the earthquake hit or maybe North of it. We didn’t feel a thing here.
We caught the public water bus from the airport to here, which stopped at Murano and Lido and a few other places on the way here. It took about 1 hr 30 minutes to get to the Hotel, which is just two bridges down from Saint Marks Square at the San Zaccharia wharf. We stepped off the bus onto the footpath and straight in the front door of the Hotel. Our room is fantastic, it is large, marble has a dressing room, huge bathroom a couch and a table and chairs as well as a book case and chiffonier. It feels like we are living in Franco Cozzo’s showroom in Footiscray! Everything is gold and white and wood!
After settling into our room we walked out the front of the Hotel and had a scrumptious dinner of steak. Gerard had steak with green pepper sauce and I had the steak with tomato and balsamic. It was just like steak bruschetta.
We went for a stroll to Saint Mark’s square and listened to some music and then back to the Hotel.
