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Saturday 26th. June 2010
We left Adelaide on a cloudy cold Saturday morning
on Singapore Airlines flight SQ 0278 in an A333. Itineraries are usually
delightfully vague for this part of the journey using phrases like "Fly
from Australia" or "In transit." This part of our journey was to take 30
hours from the time we boarded the plane in Adelaide and left the plane
in Venice, with a good deal of the time spent in transit lounges on the
ground and not flying. The flight was uneventful,
although we flew over some interesting cloud formations that looked very
much like icebergs from above.
The food, wine and service on the
flight were excellent. Watched
"Slumdog Millionaire" and "Clash of
the Titans." After a 7 hour flight we arrived at Changi
Airport at 5:30pm local time. We are due to flight out of here at about
11:00pm for Frankfurt and then on to Venice. So there is plenty of time
to window shop before we have to move on.
The twelve hour Lufthansa flight to
Frankfurt was good. Our reclining seats on the Boeing 747 were
immediately behind a bulkhead, so we had a little extra leg room
than normal. We had a hearty 3 course meal at 4:00am body clock time and
then managed to get some sleep before breakfast and arrival at Frankfurt
Airport at 5:00am local time.
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Sunrise
over the Urals from an altitude of 38,000 feet |
Sunday 27th. June 2010
Life became a little chaotic then.
Frankfurt Airport seemed to be in some kind of lock down. Our plane was
parked away from the terminal and we were bused across to it. We thought
that we were in Frankfurt on transit to Venice, but the reality was that
we were actually entering the European Union and had to undergo
all the passport control checks etc although our luggage had been booked
straight through to Venice from Adelaide. Our flight was due to leave
from Gate A1. Well that is what our boarding pass said. We followed signs that indicated the direction to Gate A1.
The signs took us through areas that were being renovated, down stairs,
down escalators, along travelators that were not working, through fire
exits and detours until we finally found a little area called the Gate
A1 departure area. No business class lounge here, just hard granite
floors, cheap round plastic tables and uncomfortable plastic chairs...
and so we sat and waited for about 90 minutes until we could board our
flight. However at the appointed time or flight was not called, infact
it didn't appear on any of the boards. So I enquired. "Oh Sir, that gate
number has changed. Your flight is now leaving from Gate A28." ...
another 500 metre walk back through the huge terminal until we found
Gate A28 and boarded the plane.
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We flew over Lake Constance and the
Swiss Alps and then landed at Venice at about 10:00am. We took the bus
to Piazalle Roma and then caught a No.1 Vaporetto which took us along
the Grande Canale to San Toma docking point where we disembarked and
walked about 100 metres through the narrow streets to the Hotel Tivoli.
The room is comfortable although the airconditioner is noisy. We spent
the afternoon walking around Venice and taking photos, which included
The Rialto Bridge, St. Marks's Biscillica (which was being renovated),
The Bridge of Sighs, and the bell tower.
All the streets are very narrow, and
the whole place was swarming with tourists. There are no cars or
bicycles allowed, so everyone walks or uses the water transport. The
temperature was about 22 degrees and the sky was hazy early on but
became blue as the day progressed. All in all it is a very interesting
place and worthy of more time than the afternoon we devoted to exploring
it
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