And on to Venice!!!

October 24, 2010
It was an easy, uneventful flight from Alicante to Rome yesterday, but I was a bit surprised when the Ryanair jet I stepped off was the only plane on the tarmac! I had forgotten that there were two airports in Venice. Luckily there was a bus to Venice everyone piled onto! I took the vaporetto to Guglie, where Joan met me.
One of the biggest perks of travelling solo is the interesting people you meet along the way. On my way to the Alicante airport I had a very nice chat with a young man from Holland who had been in Alicante for three nights. Then on the airplane to Venice, I took a window seat so I could see-or try to-see Venice as we flew in. The couple sitting next to me was from Alicante. Unfortunately they didn’t speak much English-better than my Spanish, of course! And Spanish-English my dictionary was in my suitcase! But we limped along to communicate. I told them about home exchanges, and they invited me to their house, if I return to Spain! (They don’t know my mantra, “Don’t invite me, I will come!”) They have three grown sons, and she told me all about them.
Today Joan and I took the train to Verona, an hour away. The weather was predicted to be 20% rain, but we had barely arrived, and it started to rain. For €8 we bought a Verona Pass, and we visited the Torre dei Lamberti, Teatro Romano (wonderful), Arena (3rd largest Roman arena), Chiesa di S. Anastasia, and the Duomo.
On our way into the city, we passed about 50 Lamborghinis, which appeared to be ready for a parade of some sort. As we walked to the Duomo, we heard singing, and we ducked into the door it was coming from. It was a church service in progress, and all parishioners were black. We stayed long enough to hear some speaking in English, so they were African, in all likelihood.
We took the train back earlier than we’d planned, as we were wet enough to call it a day-delightful as it had been!