Venice AND Beware flying Ryanair

We left amazing Barcelona to take a Ryanair Flight to Rome. Ryanairs moto is ‘point to point’, no frills cheapest fare. We paid $150.00 Canadian for 2 flights oneway. Good Deal!  Went online to checkin, one can do this 30 days before but you pay extra if you do that. So I went on again 7 days before to checkin online. We were travelling in low season so prices were less. 1 bag of 20 kilos= 30 euros, 1 bag of 15 kilos= 20 euros, to pick seat=4 euros, priority seating so you have a place for hand luggage=6 euros. I ended up paying more for luggage and seating than our seats originally cost but I did it for Greg’s peace of mind and mine but not so much mine. I just sucked it up and paid with my credit card online. Could not print out the boarding passes but I saw them.

Got to the line to drop off bags and because I did not print out the boarding passes, it was going to cost 15 euros each ($25Can) to have boarding passes printed out. I just kept refusing and finally when the third person came to tell me I had to do that, I stepped out of line, opened my ipad and started checking in again to find where I saw the boarding passes. (I had to sign in on Barcelona Airport wifi and needed to pay money so checked the free box and then somehow read I would get a free iphone in the mail. Knew something was wrong. What had I joined?) After half an hour or more, I got online and I found the boarding passes again. Showed them to the guy and he said OK. Hah!  I kept that 50 dollars in my pocket.

Then we had to show the boarding passes when checking in with security. I had kept my ipad open to the passes. However, one pass got read and then my ipad said I had to refresh it. So I stepped out of line again and searched again until I found the passes again. Got through security. Then I had to guard my ipad so I could get on the plane. I managed. Put the ipad in my bag. Then had to show the boarding passes again to get on the plane. Found the passes again.

Somewhere during all of this I read where one could download the Ryanair air app. But as Marcia knows, I could not find the app store. What a nightmare. Greg and I were so happy when we finally did get on the flight. Next time, I will think twice before I book Ryanair, the airline for cattle!

 While we were watching the concert on Mother's Day this little girl and an adult walked into the church. The adult took a seat but the little girl just marched right up to the front, watched the string orchestra, dance a little and then took a seat. I guess she got hot because she got up and brought her coat back, dropped it off and went to the front again. Noone seemed to care. She was really cute and interested in the players.

This is the hotel wall in Venice. The wall is covered with lush fabric which is padded. Ad there are  murano crystal light fixtures plus a number of paintings. It is a great hotel.

This is a photo from our hotel window overlooking the Grande Canal.

And a photo from the canal looking at Bellini Hotel where we are booked with our Air Miles points. 

We spent today and a good part of yesterday riding the Vaporetta water taxi up and down the canals. This is just one of the photos I took from the water taxi. It just all does not seem real.

I tried to checkin today with Swiss Air. Could not do it. Even had the concierge desk phone and somehow our flight is blocked. So we will head out at 5:30 a.m. for the airport and hope we arrive in Calgary by nightfall.