This is our “Trains, Planes and Automobiles” day. Our only photos today are “through the train window photos” 🙂

TRAINS:
We start in Villach on the train. We have reserved seats in a 6 person compartment. The young man who sold us the tickets at the train station said it was best to have reserved seats as it is very busy.

We’re not sure if we paid extra. Our seats are the only reserved ones in our compartment and we have to evict some young people who thought they scored an empty one. Some leave but 4 stay on with us. We can tell from their conversation that they are Irish. So we strike up a conversation with them. We have Irish experience 🙂

They are 8 friends travelling for 3 weeks before college resumes. Staying in hostels and travelling on trains. Some are wearing bracelets that we have seen on other young people. I thought they were hostel bracelets, but it turns out they are train passes. These kids are from the Dublin area and have 1 night in Venice before flying home the next day. They were great compartment mates.

We arrive at Venice Mestre train station, the one that is closest to the airport. Following the signs for the airport shuttle we arrive at a bus station just outside the train station. Stu goes in to buy tickets. 8 Euros each. Direct bus though. Upon arrival at Marco Polo Airport we see that there is a lot of construction going on. We don’t recognize much at all. We flew home from here two years ago.

PLANES:
It is about 3PM and the airport is soooo busy. We have a very long time to kill (about 7 hours) before our flight to Kos. Stu guards our stuff and I go in search of somewhere less chaotic. We feel that we are invisible as others are just cutting across our paths intent on their own destination. Numerous times we are dodging other people that just don’t seem to notice we are there. This kind of thing makes me a little CRAZY!!

I find a cafe in the arrivals area and guide Stu back there. We sit and get a couple of beers. 4.90 Euros each, crap we are used to 2-2.50 Euros. We are now in Italy and our friend Clayton tells us that EVERYTHING is expensive in Italy 🙂

There are lots of people arriving. We see one guy from afar. I tell Stu that is the Italian Hulk Hogan. He is big, wearing tight tank top (or whatever the male version is called), tight jeans, a cowboyish hat, long dark hair and dark Hulk Hoganish facial hair. He walks past where we are and I get my camera ready for his return. He is too quick, was back before I got my spy camera ready. Darn. He was a character. The Venice Film Festival is on at the moment. Maybe he is some big Italian Action Star!!!

We find that wine in the airport is much cheaper than beer. So With a little bottle of wine, a couple real wine glasses we start a Scrabble Marathon.

Time to board the plane. We have very low expectations for this airline Volotea. One review we read said he wished he could give negative numbers for his rating. The fare was cheap and only a 2.5 hour flight, so we rolled the dice. We only booked about 24 hours in advance and were assigned seats 1A & 1B. Front row, has a bit more legroom. Bonus. The plane is a Boing 717. From other reviews people were complaining how loud the 717 is. Okay, We have been on a couple of flights in the past few years and this was no louder than some of the newer planes. The flight was on time and got us to where we wanted to go. We rate it A1.

AUTOMOBILES:
We arrive in Kos @ 1:15 AM. We are another time zone east now. There is a queue of taxis outside waiting for our flight and we get the next guy in line. We show him the address of our booked place and off we go. It is about 15 minutes and he doesn’t say a word to us. He finds the place, asks for 15 Euros and is off. Not sure if all of them are this personable or he was hoping for a fare to the far end of the island. We have had that happen in Vegas. Cab driver was not happy at the short distance we were going. I think he just about got us killed. I put my seatbelt on part way through that cab ride. Stu was in the front seat with a horrified look on his face. Breaking all the way 🙂

Maria met us at the door and showed us our accomodation. YIKES!!!! Not great. It is late and we just need to sleep. We have booked this place for 2 nights to get us started. We will find something better tomorrow!