5C's Que Pasa

…….because we would have blown it.  As my regular readers know the trip to Venice was a means to help us change our thinking after losing our two special girls.  We just went for it with not much real planning.  Of course being evacuated due to flooding just before we left didn’t help either.  We had a wonderful time and didn’t worry about the money once we got there ( well once I stopped trying to convert Euros to Canadian dollars ).  Some of you are interested in how much it all cost.  Because we were only away for a week it was expensive mostly due to the airfare.  Had we stayed away longer it would have averaged out.  We don’t regret what we spent as it was our first trip without dogs in over twenty years and it reignited that spark to travel abroad.  We only started RVing because of the dogs.  We were used to traveling several times per year  all over the world and having dogs curtailed that.  The RV opened up an entire new world to us.  We love our RV and will continue traveling to the Isla every year as well as other destinations but we will add some trips within Mexico by car ( the new Jeep ) and at least one, perhaps two or three trips by air the rest of the year.  I retire next May when I turn 65 and Colin is willing to semi retire, only time will tell how that works out 😐   However his love of traveling may help dictate that path.

A selfie in St. Mark’s Square.

The airfare from Kelowna to Toronto and then onto Venice and return on Air Rouge was $2513.42 CAD.  As it was a long flight we splurged and paid for seat selection on each leg for an additional $520.00CAD.  We thought that it was worth the money and will do it again.  I had originally booked us into a hotel but shortly before we left I booked into Airbnb ( $1307.00 CAD for six nights ) the switch to that saved us $533.00CAD.  It was wonderful having a huge entire apartment to ourselves.  The first few nights I was very restless due to jet lag and Colin just moved to the living room and slept on the sofa.  Health insurance for the week was only $59.00.

On our last day walking thru the Accademia district we came upon this car which had been converted to a floating vessel of sorts.  The fellow had certainly traveled a long distance , about 400 KM.  it looked like it was held together with duck tape.

All of our transportation including from the airport to Venice return, the seven day transportation pass, the museum pass, the skip the line St. Mark’s Bell Tower ticket and the skip the line added to our Doges Palace museum pass,  as well as the expensive opera tickets ( 170 euro ) cost us about 471 euros or $745.00 CAD.  But having saved that $533.00 CAD by using an Airbnb we were only out $212.00 CAD.

The following video was also taken while walking through the Accademia district.  He is phenomenal.  Well worth a few moments of your time.

Food both for breakfasts at the apartment and for lunches and dinners out and the occasional gelato and spritz and wine as desired as well as bottled water came to $1017.80CAD for both of us.  That works out to $145.00CAD per day for the two of us.  I think that is a reasonable cost.  Included in this cost are the ridiculously expensive prices for water  ( 2 small bottles and 1 medium bottle, 2 tiny as in 3 inches wide sandwiches which served as breakfast and then two normal size tuna sandwiches for later on the plane )  which we were forced to pay expensive Venice airport  prices which came to 27.55 Euro/$43.75CAD 😯

We allowed three hours to check in and it took every second of that to get through several sets of security before lining up for yet another final security and passport check.  The airport was on heightened alert because of the London situation but it truly was chaos.  I had read how the Venice airport was a madhouse and so it was.  There is no control, no guidance, just a free for all of hundreds of people trying to get through a narrow security area not once but three times.  Next time we will arrive by train having flown in from another airport within Italy.  I really can’t see myself doing the Venice airport again.

The following are the sounds of bells ringing at noon as we stood at the top of the bell tower on the Friday morning, mentioned in my last Venice post.

We had no intention of buying anything as we have no space for things in our home nor the RV.  However we did end up purchasing my small purse and tiny wallet, the two bracelets, a lace fan in Burano and the three glass balls and the  drinking glass in Murano.   All small things that we could fit into our luggage and at a reasonable price of $216.00CAD.  The grand total comes to $6420.00CAD, not a lot for some, a reasonable amount for others and yet too much for a few.  Europe is expensive and Venice is extremely expensive.  We truly had no idea how much it was going to cost but figured that we could live with whatever it cost.  Life is short and we had a grand time.  So we may go out less this summer but it was worth every penny.  If you really want to know about the details of the flights and our missing our connection in Vancouver let me know.  Looking back I think that the extra night in Vancouver at Air Canada’s expense helped us with our jet lag.  We got home about 1PM the next day, were able to unpack and have a normal day.  We were in bed early, about 8 or 9 PM but we were back to our normal routine the next day, albeit a bit sleepy.  My ankles were swollen for a few days.  Next time I will make more of an effort to walk around during the flight.

Yes there will be a next flight.  We are already working on it.  Where do you think we might go?  Back to Italy, to France or to Spain or perhaps to Iceland?????  Any other suggestions?  Actually we just booked our flight out for next May 😆

We don’t normally do videos but today’s post has a few of them, all special but short 😉   Colin wanted me to end our Venice posts with this last magical video of the ringing bells in St. Mark’s Square after our Viennese Waltz.

We will be back.