Travel is Challenging

Let me start by saying that passenger safety is always number one priority when flying anywhere in the world, so I have no qualms with our very long, 30h, journey to Venice Marco Polo airport.  We left the house at 12:30 on Thrusday and arrived at our Agriturismo at 1:15 am on Saturday morning. It is truly draining as you watch the hands on the clock circle round and round while the hours pass by. Before you know it, you have no sense of the time, nor the day of the week. It all blends into a time warp and your head starts bobbing. You’re not sure if you need to sleep, eat, drink or wake up and brush your teeth. 

The Coles notes version of our journey went like this: the Boeing 777 we were scheduled to fly to LHR last night at 8:45pm pulled up lame to the gate in YVR at about 5pm. We were told they would need two hours for the repair, so we expected to depart around 10:45.  In reality, we departed at 1:30am as the engineers had to keep pushing the time out. As I sat and saw our departure time inch away from us, I tried to envision the scene that would unfold for at Heathrow. We’d be in deep doo-doo if we didn’t receive updates from BA so I decided to buy an Airalo sim for the UK just seconds before my cell data ran out. I also inquired about needing an ETA and was assured I would not, thankfully. 

As the passengers and staff patiently waited, a team of seven engineers had been working to fix whatever ailed the plane.  David wondered if it was the flux capacitor that went on the fritz. I said it wouldn’t matter to me, but based on all the evidence, it likely was the flux capacitor. Such a mechanics wizard, he is 😆. (actually, he really is a wizard when it comes to mechanics, just not Boeing 777 engines).

Up, up and away

So, we lift off in the dark at 1:30am and shortly after take-off, the crew began their meal service. What on earth? Dinner at 1:45am? Most of us had already sunk into our seats and were settling in for some well-deserved sleep, so they didn’t get past the first row in our section before bailing on the offer. 

We both managed to get some shut-eye as we squirmed in and out of various pretzel configurations, then we woke up about 2h from London. Cruising through the movie list, I discovered ‘A Complete Unknown’, the story of Bob Dylan. It was excellent and you need to see it if you haven’t already. That’s all I’ll say on that. The pilot circled right over central London on the final pass to the landing, giving us some spectacular views of the Thames, the London Eye, the London Bridge and probably Big Ben, too. That’s when it all started to feel real. 

The final leg

Our Boeing 777 pulled up to Terminal 5, BA’s main home at LHR. There are A, B and C terminals so we headed in and trekked across C, across B, passing through security, and on to the main A terminal building. En route, I picked up the email telling us we were booked on the 8:40pm flight to Venice. Phew! After sorting out our luggage transfer and picking up the boarding passes, we had one last wait to endure. The arrival time of this leg of the journey would just miss the midnight check-in at our accommodation, so I got in touch to finalize our arrival details. And, was this flight on time? No. This time, the pilots were delayed since their flight from Portugal had battled strong headwinds that slowed them down, which meant we were a half hour late. Needless to say, this flight was full to the gills, as they were picking up all the passengers on delayed flights from across the globe. Fortunately, we had a wicked tailwind so it was shorter than expected. 

Venice in our sights

As we neared Venice, we could make out the lights of this very densely populated area of Italy. The outline of the Adriatic was visible by its complete darkness. And, just like that we were down and soon thereafter David was plucking our bikes from the carousel. We headed outside to join the lineup of travellers waiting for cabs and soon we were headed to our Agrituismo, just a kilometer from the airport. I will never forget the sound of the gravel crunching under the tires and then the wafts of jasmine scent that washed over me as I got out of the cab. The wide facade of this single floor building is smothered in nicely manicured jasmine and it’s all in bloom. We let ourselves in to the room, and when our heads hit the pillows we were out almost instantly.