I figured that since we were in that part of Italy, we might as well throw in a couple of days in Venice (Wendy wants to see churches, and I have 4 museums I want to visit). For our 5:45 PM flight to Frankfurt, we got picked up by Edward Cushing at 2 PM on Wednesday (11 days is too long to pay for long-term parking). Everyone and his friend were at Logan Airport, but we had plenty of time:
Although our plane was an hour late, all seemed fine as we got on-board (don't worry - all those seats got filled):
7 hours later, we were landing in Frankfurt:
I had budgeted 1 hour 50 minutes to make our next flight (to Venice). Even with us being an hour late, since the next flight was also on Lufthansa, I figured it would only take a few minutes to get from one gate to the other.
WRONG!!
Since Frankfurt Airport (FRA) serves as Lufthansa's main operational base and primary global hub, Gates are literally miles apart. Tack on 1 hour 40 minutes to get through "Passport Control", and we missed our flight. The people at Lufthansa's Service Center were very helpful, but the earliest we could get was a flight at 9 PM this evening (we got 2 boarding passes for that flight). But as we were leaving, the man whispered "Maybe you could just go to the gate for the noon flight - people for that flight might get delayed". Good idea - we made our way to that gate and were told that the flight was sold-out and they had a long waiting list. We had to wait somewhere, so we grabbed some seats and took a nap. When they started announcing for the flight, I said Maybe we could just stand near the Gate, to show we are still interested. Lo and Behold, after repeated announcements of "Last Call", the woman threw boarding passes (for 2 no-shows) into our hands and hustled us and another couple down the gate and onto a bus-to-the-plane [Thank You God]. We flew over The Alps, and were going through Venice Airport by 2:45
The hotel had told me to take The Alilaguna Water-bus Orange-line to the last stop (Santa Maria del Giglio):
Reminds me of Claude Monet's "The Grand Canal, Venice", 1908 oil (Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco):
We made our way through the streets of Venice to our hotel:
After ringing the buzzer, the owner came from around-the-block (nobody is ever paid to just sit at a desk and greet guests). He took us around-the-block, over-a-canal, and up-an-alley to our building's door:
Our room was one flight up, with a nice terrace, and a pretty view out the back:
After crashing for a couple of hours, we went to the lovely restaurant right at the end of our alley, on a canal:
The sun had set by the time we finished, so we walked through Venice, past the shops and over the canals to St. Mark's Square:
It does take your breath away:
Back to the room, and off to sleep. WOW - Thank you God for this wonderful Adventure!
Shameless Plug: if you enjoy this blog, you may like my other one about Hiking the 4,000 footers in New Hampshire/Vermont/Maine/New York:
hyperlink: dixonheadingnorth
http://dixonheadingnorth.blogspot.com/
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