Verona; Monday, 05 May, 2008

A final short morning in the city, and the glorious weather of the previous couple of days had broken with a light drizzle in the air when we woke, replaced shortly after by a brief, but beefy, shower. After packing bags and leaving them with reception we went for a wander around the Arena and out along the line of the walls to the Tombe di Gulliana, supposedly where Juliette was buried (but given that Romeo and Juliette is FICTION – a fact that some tourists fail to understand) it is just a tourist trap, and this being Monday on continental Europe – shut.

After a wander back to the hotel to collect our bags we walked back down to the station and joined the queue for the bus to the middle of nowhere international (or VERONA (Brescia) as Ryanair like to call it.)

With all the grace that befits a Ryanair flight there was a bit of a scrum for the coach, and then over an hour later when we arrived at the airport (which is nowhere near Verona, and quite frankly nowhere near Brescia either!) a scrum for people trying to retrieve their bags so that they could check in fast.

By the time we checked in we were up into the 120s for boarding, so we didn’t partake in the crush for the gate mentality that takes over low-cost passengers. Sitting in the departures lounge we were able to watch everyone stand up and rush towards the gate as the plane landed, obviously all failing to spot the issue that it still had to park up, empty its incoming consignment of tourists, and give the plane a bit of a tidy before they would be allowed to board, and 20 minutes later they were all still standing there, whilst our little group were sitting comfortably in an almost deserted departures lounge.

In the end we had a battle of wills with another small group to see who would chicken out first and go to the gate before they were called. In the end we won and for the first time ever I was the last person to clear the gate, with the door being quite purposefully slammed behind me! And consequently had to play hunt the single seat that is left (between an Italian couple who insisted on having the Window and Aisle seat and a steaming row for the length of the flight)

Back at Stansted, and the fastest I have ever been through the airport, we decided to swap allegiances and caught the bright orange easyBus back into the centre of London.