16 Sept 2007 - Italy Day 1

We had to get up at 4:30AM and catch the 5:15AM Gatwick Express train from London's Victoria station. We had planned to carry our bags on to the plane until we were stopped going into security and they said that our bags were too large and that we must check them. We rushed back to Easy Jet and were able to quickly check our bags and get back into the security line. We made it in plenty of time to catch our direct flight to Venice at 7:50AM.

We made a choice to sit on the right hand side of the plane with hopes of getting some photos while flying into Venice. Correct choice for Venice but missed some photos flying over Switzerland, although Helen was still able to take some amazing photos of the mountains near Mt. Blanc from the right side of the plane.

We picked up our rental car at the airport and started to drive but ran into traffic. We also noticed that the car stuttered when driving in 2nd and 3rd. We elected to return the car which appears that last person put petrol in the diesel tank. We picked up another car and started out again.

We decided to take secondary roads instead of the autostrada, and headed north east towards Trento. After a couple hours we finally left the traffic and we driving in the beautiful valleys of wine and apple orchards. Along the way, we stopped for some grocery supplies and also bought apples from a local road vendor next to his orchards.

As you know we are both into recycling and continue to be amazed that other countries are way a head of the USA. We immediately noticed recycle bins in the small towns and also at the grocery store we stopped at. This continued for the entire trip in northern Italy.

We finally ended up in Penzolo, Italy and found a small hotel for the evening.

Click here to view additional photos from day 1.