It’s always hard to come home when you’ve had a brilliant holiday, but it was made a little harder this morning with sun promised in Venice again and only sight of rain, rain and more rain on the London weather forecast. However, we made the most of the short time we had and after breakfast and a nice chat with Walter as we paid our bill, Annie and I headed off to a nearby bakery we’d seen and wanted to buy some biscuits from. Venetian biscuits are famous and the ones in Majer at Campo S. Giacomo dell’Orio looked wonderful. Packets of biscuits in hand, we still had nearly an hour till we had to catch the waterbus from San Stae to Marco Polo Airport, so we wandered on into the Campo itself. As the other day in the morning, and indeed last night when we took a walk through it, it was so peaceful. It seemed that mostly only locals were around and people sat on benches dotted about the square and talked. So we did too.

After a while we knew there was no delaying heading back to the hotel to say goodbye and pick up our bags, promising Walter we’d definitely be back to stay again soon. We then walked the few metres to the San Stae vaporetto stop where we could pick up our Alilaguna boat to take us directly to the airport (we had a €25 return ticket). It only goes every half hour and I’d heard from my son (who was there last August), that it could get very full. Indeed, it was very full, but we managed to get on, although a couple of stops down a woman wasn’t allowed on. The boats aren’t that large, unlike the vaporetti, that seem to hold hundreds. There aren’t many stops and soon we were rushing across the Lagoon in a kind of water rush hour with other boats of different sizes whizzing past in a huge cloud of wash. About 45 minutes later we were disembarking and making our way along the marked walkway into the airport and heading through security. This new boat service (since I was last in Venice) makes the journey from airport to Hotel Al Ponte Mocenigo and back brilliantly easy.

One of the good things about heading home from Italy is that hanging around in an airport is a blow softened by their tendency to have good wine bars in the waiting area. I had this in Rome recently and in Venice there is the de Canto wine bar which is where I always head. It had changed slightly since my last visit and expanded and was also serving cicheti as well as plates of hams, salame and cheeses.

Annie and I sat at the bar and ordered three cicheti each and a glass of prosecco. Afterwards, we had an excellent coffee and little Venetian biscuits.

Soon we were on our flight and heading back to London … which, despite the dire weather warnings wasn’t so bad. Annie and I said our goodbyes as she headed home to north London while I went outside the terminal where I was able to pick up a 490 bus which brought me all the way home. The first thing I did was put on the kettle, make a cup of tea and open those lovely biscuits from Majer. I also unpacked some coloured/flavoured pasta I bought there.

Soon, being home didn’t seem so bad and really, when you’ve had a great holiday, then the only thing to do is to sit back and enjoy the pleasure its brought.