June 7, 2018

            The sky was overcast, little wind, hazy in the distance and the temperature was about 20°C. 
After an early breakfast, we left the Celebrity Constellation by 7:30 a.m. (1:30 a.m. in Toronto) and took the less than a minute ride on the People Mover tram to Piazzale Roma where we were in time to catch the 7:50 airport bus to Marco Polo airport to fly to Frankfurt and then Toronto.
The bus ride took less than 30 minutes.  Once inside the airport we oriented ourselves to find the Lufthansa check-in desk for our 2:35 p.m. flight to Frankfurt. Our two pieces of luggage combined were under 34 kg, after five weeks on vacation. The luggage is checked through to Toronto. We may have to claim the baggage in Toronto at Customs, but we have over three hours there before the flight home.  The agent asked if we wanted to take the 10:20 a.m. flight to Frankfurt and changed the boarding pass so that we had over four hours in Frankfurt airport instead of the original hour and 10 minutes.  By the time we had cleared security we had 3,159 steps (2.35 km). There was no passport control since the flight was within the European Union. There is not a lot of seating in the waiting areas at Venice’s airport. The 10:20 a.m. flight did not leave until 11:08. Had we not switched flights and this happened to the afternoon flight, there was a good chance we would have missed our connection to Toronto as we would have had only a little over an hour to get from the Lufthansa terminal A to terminal B to catch an Air Canada flight.  It takes about 30 minutes at a good pace; you go to the center of the airport, down two levels in an elevator and then through a large tunnel, which runs under the tarmac where the planes arrive, then up some stairs (or an elevator) two levels and more passages to a large U shaped terminal where we had to go through passport control, only a 20 minute line. Since we were leaving Germany and the European Union we needed to “exit” the country.
            The Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt, Germany, did not have a TV, but it was a 60 minute flight. Lufthansa offers inflight Internet connections at three different levels of service – up to 150 kbps to check emails; up to 600 kbps for surfing; and up to 15 Mbps streaming; but no listing as to the price.  When we were boarding the flight, part way through the plane at the wing exit, a flight attendant was giving people a small package with a chocolate biscuit in it.  The was no beverage service on the flight.
            In Frankfurt we explored the airport a bit before entering the passport control line, then wandered through terminal B, found our gate and had some lunch. We had about 41/2 hours before taking the next plane.  Steps 11,685 or 8.69 km. We had time to post the last few days to the blog,  check emails and read.
           The sky in Frankfurt at 3 p.m. looked very dark. The agent in Venice did mention something about a storm in Germany later today.  Before boarding, the passengers needed to have a “passport document verification” where the gate agent checked the passport to the person, their seat assignment and placed a sticker on the back of the passport. We had never had that procedure in our travels. 
            We enjoyed Premium Economy seats back to Toronto. The plane took off at 4:30 p.m. (11:30 a.m. in Toronto). We had the same bottle of water, “sleeping kit” and a meal menu as we did going to Dublin plus the extra leg room.  The entrée choice was either Chicken Stirfry or Truffle Pasta served with a bun, salad which had a little 20 ml bottle of oil & vinegar dressing and a Black Forest Crème Tart for dessert.  The flight was 6,394 km.  The Canada Customs forms were distributed before dinner which was quite unusual for a flight lasting almost eight hours.
            After landing in Toronto, we walked to the Customs Hall and fed the Customs form into the automated system and were through in 20 minutes.  Our luggage was coded to go all the way home.  After going through Toronto security in the fastest time ever, we stopped and had a Tim Hortons coffee and muffin and waited for our final flight.  We took a taxi home and unlocked our door just before 1 a.m. on Friday morning. We left the luggage unpacked until the morning and headed to bed.

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