Rome to Venice

It is probably best to start this instalment with a short story from our pre-departure.  We had been discussing the merits of taking some muesli bars with us so we had something on hand for D if he got caught short for any reason.  Dwayne wasn't too sure about the practicalities of this and was heard questioning whether we would have any problems bringing food into Italy (given the strict restrictions we face when coming back into New Zealand).  Thankfully Toni, as usual (!), won - and for good reason....

Our arrival in Roma was met, not by avid MAF equivalents, not by Customs, nor by Police presence.  It would seem that the Italians were pretty blase about who decided to enter their country.  OK, we exaggerate a little for effect - there were no immigration forms to fill out but if we wanted to bring in loads of Euros they wanted to know about it.  However that was about the extent of it.  Needless to say, the muesli bars were fine.

Needless to say, the muesli bars were fine.

Anyway, we went through the initial security check and followed the "Transfer" signs, with Toni confidently ignoring Dwayne's suggestions that those signs were for international transfers only.  After much traipsing and really not knowing if we were heading the right way or not, we finally came across a Customs desk where they glanced momentarily at our passports, managed to stamp a page, while looking in the other direction, and we wandered off!

There was much jubilation on Toni's part when we found the Transfer counter and were finally able to convert our tickets to Boarding Passes.  Not as much jubilation, though, as after a mere hour's flight, we got off the plane in Venice and watched our two bags come out of the hold ....... (the last time we had seen them was in Christchurch, around 38 hours earlier)