Venice, Italy

It is now 3 days into the trip and we have started to get used to being in Italy. Today, we will drive from Florence to the outskirts of Venice and drop the rental car. Then we plan to take a water taxi to our hotel. Having a car is great, but driving in the old cities is next to impossible. Last night we arranged for a 6AM wake up call and went to bed. The phone rang this morning and someone said something in Italian. I replied “good morning, thank you” and hung up. The morning had come very fast… We got up, got dressed, and rolled our bags downstairs. I checked out and asked for the keys to the car. (It had been waiting on the street for us all previous days.) The man at the front desk told us our car would not be here until 7AM and since it was now 3:30 AM we would be waiting for awhile. I guess our wake up call was a wrong number…My wife is very unhappy. She is able to convince the man at the front desk to give her back a room key and goes back to the room.

As it turns out it was my fault the car was not there. I told them we would be driving early on the previous days. They would bring the car from the private parking garage to the street around 11:00 pm the night before, so we did not wait for the garage to reopen at 7AM to get the car. Apparently I did not make this clear yesterday, so the car was still in the garage and unable to be retreived until it opened. So, not only did I wake my wife up in the middle of the night to get dressed and check out. We had to wait for 4 hours to actually leave Florence.

After writing this, I got out the map. My wife wanted to spend as much time in Venice a possible. I needed to make sure we made this drive, whenever it actually began, as quickly as possible. The earlier we arrive in Venice, the less trouble I will be in with my wife.

At 7:00 my wife comes downstairs again, at 8:00 the car finally arrives. We jump in and head towards Venice. I think this car had a motor borrowed from a weed whacker. It did not seems to appreciate the speed at which this trip needed to occur to try and make things up to my wife. About 15 miles down the highway with the pedal fully pushed to the floor the entire time, we reached top speed. We continued in this same manner for the entire 3 hours trip. We begin discussing our day in Venice, the things we will do, etc.

As we come to a sudden stop, we can see the end of the toll road and Venice in the distance. The line to pay and get off the toll road is at least 2 miles long. Luckily all the right lanes are reserved for those with toll tags. I decide to use the right lanes as long as possible and cut over at the last minute to save time. This method is very effective in the states when you are driving a suburban. It does not work near as well in Italy when you are driving an efficiency powered car with a weed wacker motor. The closer we got to the end, the more apparent it was that no one was going to allow us to cut back into line. As this became more and more obvious, I made a decision that I chose to keep to myself. This car was almost small enough to go under the gate of the toll tag lanes. All I needed to do was follow one of these trucks speeding through at 30-40 mph. We would just skip the cash line.

From a dead stop we began accelerating, and unable to catch the first truck I soon chose another to follow through the gate. I could not catch up with this one either, but I keep the pedal down anyway. Speed was the key to success for this manuver. Melissa notices what I am trying to do and begins to tell me to stop. But I have comitted and we will succeed. At the last second, I did got right on the tail of a truck. Melissa has begun screaming for me to stop. We made it through the gate just before it closed on top of us and then the camera flashed. Being that close to the back of the truck had obstructed my view for 2 important things. First, the road to Venice required an immediate right after the toll booth. Second was the 10+ highway patrol cars parked on the side of the road past the toll booth.

Ready for the worst, I did the only thing that seemed possible at the moment. I just kept driving. Surprisingly, none of the police force followed me. Melissa was pretty mad at my stupidity but calmed down relatively quickly. Our missed turn took us on an hour long detour through mainland Venice. Every time we passed a police officer, I knew it was about to be all over. But we made to the Hertz, where we quickly unloaded our bags, tossed the keys on the desk, and jumped into a water taxi.