Northern Italy- travel day/day 1

 

Our trip begins with the drive to Toronto. See our smiling faces.  

The trip out to Toronto was fine, it was a beautiful drive, all the way until after the Peace Bridge where there were accidents and other hold ups making me nervous about being late for out flight.  We pulled in to Park N Ride and the bus was right there, thankfully, so a nice seamless transition to the airport.  I want to note, I prefer flying out of Toronto just because they are SOOOOOO nice in Canada.  We did grab lunch, a beef and chicken shwarma.  As far as airport food goes, this was fantastic.  Everything was fresh, well seasoned, and not too expensive. 

 

So the flight- we flew Delta, but it was KLM to Amsterdam and then a City hopper to Bologna.  The only word here is Premier.  We paid a little for seats just so we could be the first ones off the flight (very short connection in Amsterdam) but the seats themselves were super comfortable.  And look at this meal- does this look like it came from a plane?  

They started with hot towels, headphones and a bottle of water.  On to dinner- we had chicken, creamed spinach, rice, cucumber tomato salad, cheese, olive bread and pineapple coconut cheesecake.  It was really good, and a lot of food.  And of course your choice of beverage including beer or wine.  Then they came around with breakfast- a sort of Italian sausage, tomato roll and a drink- juice coffee etc.  In Amsterdam we had to literally fly (walk like maniacs), from gate F to gate B and get through customs.  They were nice, opened some extra lanes at one point and those of us needing to make our flight- they let us through.  The City hopper flight was empty so we each had our own seat. 

Then we landed in Bologna, hopped the train to Padova and off to visit the basilica of my favorite saint.  At first we could not find it, they just call it the Basilica di Santo.  

Once there it was very emotional and you can touch San Antonio’s tomb, see his relics, it was amazing.  I cried.  

I did not take a picture of us touching the tomb, I was way too emotional to think of that.  But I got one of those in front of us.  I prayed for some people and thanked St. Anthony for things he has brought to my life.  

We were beat and tired and our feet hurt and Ronnie was a trooper walking the 25 minutes from the train station to the basilica just so I could see my favorite saint. 

We then hopped the city train for Venice. Welcome to Venice! 

 Once in Venice we quickly found the hotel.  It was a short walk.  We stayed at Al Potico, it is perfect for what we needed.  Close walking to everything and they are so so nice. 

But we were beat so we went to sleep for a few hours.  When we got up it was showers, fresh clothes and then for a walk around the city.  We saw some other churches, our favorite thing to do in Italy.  

Some pretty sites.  

And stopped for dinner.  It was good and we were not starved but hungry.  Ronnie had zuppa di Mare and I had Parmigiano di Melanzane with a nice glass of wine.  We chose to sit outside, it got chilly towards the end, but it was nice to be outside eating and relaxing. Plus Ronnie loves to be able to smoke everywhere with no judgment.  

They served tarelli in the bread basket!

We finally ended the day with a drink on the balcony of our hotel and off to bed for another Venetian Adventure tomorrow. (No filter on the picture either, just pure Italian glow)