With work over, the agonising wait to leave for holidays began. We had done a ‘test pack’ then reasoned that it made no sense to remove everything again so stayed packed from Wednesday eve. Our run was a little rushed at the end (partly because we were previously so organised) but we got to the airport in plenty of time and amused our son, our chauffeur, with little panics.I want to pretend that long haul (14 hours first leg) flight is nice. We flew Emirates so, unusually, had adequate leg room, but being strapped into a chair for that period of time is an exercise in managed misery, punctuated by increasingly confusing combinations of food and various bit of us going to sleep. Neither of us actually slept however so arrived bleary in Dubai in time for coffee/tea and cake.

Another 6 hour leg and we were at Venice International Airport in pouring rain. We then stood for what has been so far the most exhausting thing we have done – waiting in a ziggy zaggy snake queue to get through passport control. The nature of a ziggy zaggy queue is that you visit, then repeatedly revisit people with bad body odour as you progress. Helpfully it seemed the airport did not put on the aircon so that was a special game of guess that smell – over an hour of queuing and we were miraculously reunited with our luggage and off to find a water bus. Fortunately our time in the queue gave the weather time to clear up and it had stopped raining to reveal an overcast crisp afternoon.

For over a year Jo (and to a lesser degree me) have planned a return to Europe and we both agreed that our time in Venice was way to short last time. 2 days was nowhere near enough time to fully explore the city so we planned this return. Read more »