Ciao Italy! 🇮🇹

Though we are all ready to go home, we are sad to have this amazing trip come to an end. We were up at 6:30 am Venice time to get ready for this long day of travel. Here's our last selfie, taken right outside our hotel with the Church of St. George of the Greeks in the background (note another leaning tower in Venice...who needs Pisa anyway!).

Our airport transfer this morning was by water (of course)! Can you tell we were sad to leave?!

Our flight from Venice didn't leave until noon, so we had plenty of time to shop in the Duty Free Store in the airport! Once we figured out that our Duty Free packages didn't count "against" us as carry-ons, Lori and Gayle set to work! That was fine and dandy until we found out that we would have to go back through security when we went through customs in Philadelphia, so we'd have to rearrange and check a bag (for the alcohol we bought) from there.

The 8.5 hour flight to Philadelphia really wasn't too bad. It was still "daytime" for us, so none of us slept. Dan and Lori flew Premium Economy on these long legs of the flights, which offered a bit of welcomed extra space. Scott and Gayle were in Economy, but paid to upgrade for 6" of extra legroom, and that made a big difference!

On arrival in Philadelphia at 3:30 pm their time (9:30 pm Venice time), it was very unorganized trying to get through customs. Apparently this airport has a reputation for this. Good thing we had a 3-hour layover! We finally got through customs, then had to rearrange our bags to accommodate our purchases. Admittedly, we looked a little like vagabonds after that, with Lori, Dan and I each checking a bag, and carrying a variety of other bags with our laundry through as our carry-ons! But we did it!

We were happy to have a Philly Cheese Steak (when in Rome, right?!) for dinner while we waited for our 7:00 pm departure (1:00 am Venice time).

For the "short" legs of the flights, we all just bought regular Economy seats. Lesson learned. That worked fine when we departed and the "short" leg was first. But when you are exhausted from three weeks of travel, and you've just flown 8 hours, it is not the time to be crammed in an economy seat for 4.5 hours!

We landed in Phoenix at 9:00 pm local time (6:00 am in Venice) and I don't think any of us got more than 2 hours of horrible sleep! We got our bags (thankfully they all arrived), only to learn that the Sky Train wasn't operating. So we had to take a shuttle bus to the parking garage. After that delay, we were finally on the road home at 10:30 pm (7:30 am Venice time).

Scott got Volun-told that he was the driver, so we stopped for snacks for everyone and a Red Bull for him. We all did stay awake to be with him in spirit on the drive home, so yay for us! We were all finally in our own homes by 12:30 am on Saturday (9:30 am in Venice)...which was 27 hours after we woke up yesterday!

And then...no one could fall asleep, especially not the guy who drank the Red Bull. It's going to be a rough recovery from this Jet Lag!

Transfers: Private Transfer from Venice Hotel to Airport by Venice Welcome

Steps: 7,116 steps or 3.5 miles

All our travel was flawlessly coordinated by Susan Boehnstedt at Critics Choice Vacations - Thank you so much Susan!!