October 7, 2010
The pack up
It is straightforward to ride 3000km across Europe but to leave Venice airport with two bikes is anything but.
Had a lovely last day in Venice. We gave ourselves a real treat and sat in St Marks Square at the Café Florian on a perfect sunny day sipping beautiful wine and eating tiny sandwiches as we listened to the Orchestra play. I could get used to that life.
Back at camp the bike pack up started. It is easier to get a bike box in Rome than Venice - we travelled the buses and all we found was one bike shop in Mestre and that was a dead loss so onto plan B. Before leaving I had bought plastic bike bags on line from Wiggle. We had carried them with us. Actually it was very straightforward, we took the bikes to bits padded them up, taped them up and slid them into the massive heavy weight plastic bags, taped those up and all looked pretty good.
Lots of waiting around this morning until a van from the camp came and picked us up to drop us at the airport. Then the fun started we were dropped at arrivals rather than departures - some complicated reason involving airport charges which was well beyond my Italian. Then to get to the next level - the lifts were narrower than the bikes, this was somewhat of a challenge. Venice Airport's facilities are completely overstretched and seemingly chaotic. The whole of departures was jammed with people. We felt as if we were charging them with battering rams as we fought our way to the check in. The drama was not over, across to the ticketing counter to sign a form to say I didn't care if they smashed up the bikes - at that stage I would have been pleased if they had thrown them away. Then the length of the concourse to take them to oversize baggage. We felt as if the albatroses had been taken from around our necks and didn't mind at all the long que for security and we did enjoy the beer in departures.
The big adventure is over for the year we feel we are very, very fortunate because
*We have the health and fitness to undertake such a journey.
*We have someone to do it with.
*We can afford to do it.
Now to get things in order at home and think of achallenging idea for 2011. If anyone has an inspiration please let us know
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6 years ago
6 years ago