Day 23

London - Venice, Italy

We had prebooked our accomodation 500mtrs from Venice airport, which relieved some of the pressure.

Before we left on our honeymoon both Craig and I had decided, given that we both loved art that we would purchase an original artpiece from Italy as our wedding present to eachother. We had found a piece in Venice on the very first day of our honeymoon that we both fell in love with. But given this was our first day we didn't want to risk buying it yet, incase we found something better on our travels.

Over the following 3 and a half weeks we hadn't found anything close to the original one in Venice and made the decision that on our last night in Venice we would make the 1.5hr ferry trip out to the art gallery of the original painting to purchase it.

This was going to be big call. We arrived into Venice airport from London at 4pm, made our way to the travel counter to order our shuttle to the hotel room and were told they would be 10 to 15mins away. Nervously we waited, as we heard that the shops closed in Venice at 7pm.

4.45pm we arrived at the hotel to checkin, which took forever given the guy on reception seemed to be doing 4 peoples jobs at once. Everytime we continued our checkin the phone would ring, he would apologise and answer it, meanwhile we watched our clocks.

All checked in, luggage left in our room, we caught the shuttle back to the ferry dock. The driver was awesome hearing our story and went top speed to get us there. The next ferry leaving in just 5mins at 5.35pm. We pulled up to the ferry dock, Craig ran to the ticket office while I hurredly made the way to the ferry that was starting to pull out. Next minute with a hand signal from the ticket office to the ferry they held the ferry for us.

We made it onto the ferry just in time ... now for the endless 1.5hr ride coming incredibly close to time. Having a brainwave of finding the business card the gallery had given us we made a very expensive but worth it phone call on our mobile to the gallery. Yes they closed at 7pm but hearing our story of wanting to buy this painting they agreed to stay open for us but apologised that they thought our painting had been sold. We were already on our way so went anyway.

At 7.03pm the ferry arrived at the Venice canals and we ran the 5min walk to the shop. As we turned the corner there the shop was and yes they were still open ... as we got closer a huge relief came over us and big smiles on our faces as we recognised one of the paintings in the window ... there it was!!! It wasn't sold!!

The guy was fantastic and gave us a brochure of the artists other paintings and list of where his paintings were sold ... all over the world!! New York, Italy, London to name a few!! We still loved it just the same as when we first saw it ... and $2,500 later our first piece of original art invested in. Carefully packaged up we held it very close to ourselves and decided to celebrate with one last dinner in the city we fell in love with when we first arrived.

We had until 12.30am to get back to the ferry for the last ferry back to the mainland. Dinner was divine and by 8pm we contemplated heading back but the lighting was perfect for some nighttime last photography shots of the water canals.

10pm and we needed to find a toilet stop ... unfortunately (or later we worked out fortunately) we couldn't find a single toilet that was open. Heading back to the dock earlier than expected and knowing we needed to cross our legs for another 1.5hr trip. Just as well because we'd read the timetable wrong and infact the last ferry left for the mainland at 10.15pm not 12.30am!! Would not be a good final last night of our time in Italy to be sleeping on the street!

Finally arriving back at our hotel room we breathed a sigh of relief and laughed at how crazy our evening had been... complete success!!

You can view some of Raffaele Fiore's other art pieces here