A day trip to Venice

We decided at the end of October that we would book flights to a nearby European destination on one those el cheapo airlines that advertise scarce-as-hens’-teeth seats for one euro cent. We had a good excuse; our baby sitter would celebrate her birthday in the middle of December, which we thought would be a good time to travel. We settled for Venice, but did not tell her, keeping it a surprise.

We didn’t manage the elusive one cent, but we were happy with four seats at EUR 1.49 a piece. The rest of the EUR 160 we paid had something to do with unavoidable taxes, fees, and credit card charges. It’s always a bit of a mystery how EUR 1.49 can turn so quickly into EUR 40, but we shrugged our shoulders and proceeded with the online booking. It could have cost EUR 400 each, Brussels to Venice and return, if we had travelled on one of the bigger airlines.

On the day of departure we were up at 6.30am to complete our online check-in, print off our boarding passes and have breakfast. Passports, boarding passes, gloves, umbrella (yes, it was supposed to be raining in Venice), and water proof boots all in order, we left at around 8am to pick up our babysitter. Not only were we on schedule, something of a rarity, but she was as well, so we set off for Brussels Airport.

Getting to the airport
Our el cheapo airline specified that those who had webchecked-in must be present at the boarding gate no later than 30 minutes prior to scheduled departure. We were giving ourselves an additional half an hour leeway. Right on time, we pulled up at Brussels Airport, found a decently located parking spot, and headed into the terminal.

None of us had yet spotted the ticket counter or the gate where we were supposed to board, so I detoured via the Swissair counter to enquire: “Would you please tell me where Ryanair is located in the terminal?” “Ryanair?” The blonde woman looked at me with a strange expression on her face. “Yes, I am looking for the boarding gate, please.” “This is Brussels International Airport.” “Yes…..eh…and?” “Ryanair isn’t here. It is at Charleroi.”

Silence. Big swallow. I started to back away from the counter. “Where is Charleroi?” “About one hour south….you had better-” Smiling thanks, I turned and tore back to the others: “We’re at the wrong airport! Run!”

We paid the parking ticket and were back on the Brussels ring inside five minutes, with me trying to navigate a Michelin European Road Atlas, one of those really thick things that is perfect for crossing the entire continent, and perfectly useless for crossing a city. Yes, we do have GPS, but it usually takes me as long to program the destination as it does for us to arrive there.

We headed to where we thought was south, only to discover we were going north, when I spotted a sign indicating Charleroi in the direction we were travelling. We did the sensible thing and kept going, thereby travelling right the way around Brussels, from the east via the north to the west before finally ending up on the road south to Charleroi.

Our half an hour headstart had evaporated to seven minutes, and we had another 42 km, according to the one and only distance sign which suddenly appeared out of nowhere, until we reached Charleroi. Five minutes past our 30 minute deadline I turned around to our baby sitter. “I am really sorry. We thought we had everything organised…I don’t think we have any chance of making it.” “That’s ok.” What else could she say.

Fifteen minutes past our gate closing time, the first Charleroi Airport sign appeared. Minutes, or perhaps seconds, passed, then another sign appeared, this time indicating the exit. We slung across three lanes and rounded the curve on what felt like two wheels. There was the airfield, and as one would expect, the familiar Ryanair insignia sprayed all over the terminal.

We pulled up in a EUR 90 towaway zone and bolted into the terminal, my husband and babysitter heading for the immigration and terrorist detection area, and I for the check-in counter, each to somehow wrangle entrance to the boarding gate. They were both back before I had finished bumbling my way through a very bad explanation in French, to say we could go through, when the counter assistant stopped his bored perusal of the computer screen to deny boarding.

“Can’t you please phone through?” “Nous n’avons pas du baggage a main!” “Wir haben schon unsere Bordkarte!” Each of us threw an argument at him and he capitulated, raising a walkie-talkie and confirming we could enter “But hurry!”

That left my husband running at a speed he hasn’t attempted since his university football-playing days out to the car to repark it, and our baby sitter and I dithering at Immigration. “Je ne pas des nos Passports – mon mari doir tournire a notre voiture…en peau attendre un petit instant s’il vous plait?”

I was naturally met with frank derision, and much Gallic shaking of various heads, until my husband appeared waving our passports seconds later.

The Immigration official decided that our home printed boarding passes weren’t up to scratch, until a Ryanair official showed him how the cards actually fitted together.

A mad dash through the X-ray machines, a final passport and boarding check, and we raced up the stairs into the front of the plane just as the rear exit closed.

The very big, very blonde flight attendant scowled at us at we stepped inside and shooed us down to the middle. We were lucky to find four seats together across the aisle, into which we latched ourselves as the final lift-off procedures commenced.

An uneventful hour and a half flight later, we landed at Treviso Airport. Whatever was not strapped in or bolted down paid a visit to the cockpit, such was the force of the brakes.

We passed through the unmanned EU checkpoint with the rest of the herd, which broke into those-in-the-know streaks for the bus ticket window, and those-with-no-idea clumps of dithering tourists.

By the time I had obtained our EUR 9 andare/ritorno passes (don’t forget to validate these in the yellow letter box located just in front of the ticket office) and joined the others in the scrum onto the bus, our baby sitter was gasping “Venice! I’m in Venice!”.

The journey to Venice of 30km is notable only for the fact that the bus company, having been coerced for a pittance by said el cheapo airline into being on time for all departures and arrivals, doesn’t take the autostrada, but rather the mansion-lined boulevard running from Treviso to Mestre.

We arrived on the main island in the archipelago just in time for lunch, which we enjoyed outside, the rain having dissipated and temperatures having risen to a mild 13°C.

A day in Venice
There are any number of ways to acquaint oneself with the sinking city. A gondola complete with serenade starts at about €100 (in the off season), while the water taxis vary from EUR 15 for 7 minutes to EUR 85 including baggage from Venice Airport.

A real bargain if the goal is the length of the Grand Canal in all its splendid visual glory is the vaporetto, EUR 5 per trip and valid for one hour, which allows probably one hop off and on, best had at either the Rialto or Accademia bridges.

Several churches, minor canals and bridges, and window shopping alleys later, we stepped inside a wine and edibles boutique intent on purchasing a panettone artiginale. Until the charming signora requested EUR 20 for the beautifully gift-boxed 750g of what is essentially Italian Christmas sultana loaf. We left.

Our next shopping foray proved to be more successful (especially for the shop owner). Our babysitter found herself a golden and feather bedecked Carnevale masque, and my husband and I splashed out on Murano glass presents for the family; a vase for his eldest brother and sister-in-law, collectors of such items, a perfume bottle for his mother, and an intricately inscribed glass handled letter opener for his father.

After that we were in need of coffee and chocolate, consumed a piedi in the nearest bar. We traversed the Christmas Market, resplendent in fairy lights and Christmas trees, trestles and tables groaning under the imported regional specialties. But as the light was beginning to fade, we hightailed it to the main event: Piazza San Marco.

Here is where you find the Doges Palace, the seriously expensive restaurants and boutiques, the Basilica and the Campanile, the latter providing stunning views across to St Georges, Murano and the Lido and back across the sestieri (unfortunately it was too dark by this time for us to ride the lift to the top), and what must be the entire population of Italian pigeons.

We decided, after doing the rounds of the Square, that it was time for a cruise up the Grand Canal, and boarded the Line 1 vaporetto departing Piazza San Marco for Piazzale Roma, pick-up point for the Ryanair bus back to Treviso.

We had outside ring seats in the back of the craft, and spent the entire trip eyeballing the Venetian palazzi of the rich and famous. We peered into personal libraries covering entire floors, admired crystal chandeliers hung from rosettaed and corniched 4 metre high ceilings, the light of the bulbs reflected ad infinitum in floor-to-ceiling gold framed mirrors, and sighed wistfully at the dining setting one such room displayed. This is definitely not IKEA territory.

We found a Co-op at Piazzale Roma and purchased bottles of water, and a EUR 2.50 factory manufactured panettone, philistines that we are. A pizza al taglio trattoria in the nearby vicinity furnished dinner, and we boarded our bus.

Getting back home
Well within the required time limits, we checked in at Treviso Airport (I had neglected to print our boarding passes for the return trip!). We were joking with the security staff as we came through the X-ray door frames, our daughter was helping disarm them by flirting outrageously, when everything ground to an abrupt halt.

“Madam, your water bottles.” “My water bottles?” Since when are water bottles incendiary devices or prohibited weapons? “You must drink the contents or leave the bottles here.” “Drink the contents?!?! That’s 3 litres of water!” I raised an offended eyebrow, finished the open bottle and relinquished the other.

The security guard and I squared off for round 2. “Madam, your plastic shopping bag.” “My plastic shopping bag?” I don’t usually parrot people, but then, I am not accustomed to that embarrassing scenario in which you turn out your pockets, take off your shoes, remove all your outer garments, and then still cause the wretched machine to beep ominously. “You have something in the bag. Please place it here.”

I placed our Christmas presents on the counter as instructed. The security guard rummaged through the bag and withdrew a long slender package. “Please open this.” I complied, and presented him with the letter opener.

“You must leave this here.” “What!!” “Or you can go back to the check in counter and send it through as checked luggage.” He gestured helpfully at our babysitter’s shoulder bag. “The signorina has a bag – you can put the cortello in the bag, wrap the bag in masking tape, and pick it up at the other end on the baggage carousel.” Our babysitter clutched her bag nervously and backed away when I translated. Bags are one of her treasured accessories, nearly as important as her mobile phone. The bag was not to be an option.

“Do you have a friend waiting for you outside, someone who can post it to you?” He was obviously reluctant to part us from our possession. I shook my head. “I am afraid you must consign it to the dumped items.”

I examined the letter opener, thinking we could extract the 7cm lethal weapon of hardened plastic blade from the glass blown handle by twisting it. No luck. The security guard obliged me, when I requested he attempt to remove it, by snapping the blade out. We now had the pretty glass ball, complete with a wickedly sharp 1cm of hacked off protrusion, and were free to go.

About 30 minutes into the flight the refreshment trolley wheeled past, and our babysitter’s teenage appetite stirred. “Where’s your wallet?” my husband asked me. “You’ve got it. You’ve had it all day, in your inside coat pocket.” “I haven’t had it. You have.” “No, I’ve got yours, remember, and you’ve got mine.” Why we had swapped wallets was still a mystery. “Well, I don’t have it.” “Neither do I.” Five minute frantic search later, it was clear nobody had the wallet.

Then I remembered the tremendous force of the brakes our pilot had seen fit to apply landing the morning flight. “Oh no, oh no, oh dear…it must have fallen out of your coat pocket when we landed, you know, slid down the overhead compartment. Then when I pulled the jackets out, I never thought of checking.”

There followed several muttered expletives, as we realised we had to cancel cards, replace identification, we were mid flight, and this being an el cheapo airline, there were no such things as on board telephones.

The flight attendants couldn’t help as the cockpit would not radio back to Treviso to see if some benevolent passenger had handed in my wallet, although they assured us the Ryanair office in Brussels would take all the details and contact all the airports to where this morning’s aircraft had flown.

The rest of flight passed with that nauseating feeling of dread one gets in the pit of one’s stomach at the knowledge that somewhere out there, right at this very minute, someone has unauthorised and unpreventable access to significant sums of credit, for which one would be held responsible by the canny and uncaring bank.

We landed, passed through another unmanned Immigration desk and my husband and babysitter went to collect the car while I went to deal with the formalities. No joy. The Lost & Found Department didn’t make telephone calls to overseas airports, and Treviso and Girona, the other destinations of the aircraft, had now shut down for the evening. They would be open during office hours tomorrow, and no, they didn’t speak English in Girona.

My husband was back inside the terminal; the parking ticket payment machine wasn’t located in the car park, but in the terminal (makes sense). He did, however, have the look of someone who has just found a winning lottery ticket. He was waving a small black object at me.

“The wallet was in the glove box. I must have put it there this morning when we left the other airport.”

He tucked me under his arm “Let’s go home.”

Post script: our baby sitter is still talking about the trip, and is planning another early next year!

By Gina Wuppermann

Gina Wuppermann, of mixed European and Australian origin, lives in Maastricht with her German husband and two year old daughter.