Travel Day

When I was a child, getting up early to go on holiday was exciting. I'd set my alarm before snuggling down for an early night, knowing full well that it'd take me ages to get to sleep, and that I'd get a few hours at most. I found driving to the airport exciting, being the only people on the road in the dark was inexplicably wildly exciting. And then we'd get to the airport and have breakfast before I'd normally be up and the whole thing was just EXCITING, okay.

Not so much anymore though. Now I get into bed thinking 'what's the point', already feeling the effects of a bad nights sleep. My alarm goes off and I have to suffocate the urge to throw my phone out the window because SLEEP. So when I knew I needed to be at the airport for 5.30am, staying at an airport hotel was a much more appealing option than leaving the flat at four.

We stumbled into Gatwick South Terminal just before six and after a very painless bag drop (for the first time ever my checked bag was underweight, whoop whoop!), we made our way through security and into the departures lounge.

I MUCH prefer the South terminal at Gatwick to the north, not only are the shops better (and the world duty free shop bigger), but everything is closer together too. Everything at the North terminal is spread out across one long narrow area, whereas the South terminal is more like a hub, with all the shops circling you. If I've got to walk 5 miles to the gate, I don't want to walk another three to Pret, you know?

After a fairly restrained trip through the World Duty Free shop, breakfast was the first order of the day. We ended up in Wonder Tree, a concept restaurant from the makers of Giraffe (and we all know how much I love Giraffe). A welcome change from the usual airport breakfast fare of McMuffins or Weatherspoons fry ups, the Wonder Tree menu not only has a ton of options, it has a lot of different dishes too. The service was a little slow (we'll let them off since the place was heaving), the food was infallible. I opted for Avocado and Scrambled Eggs on Sourdough toast with fresh mint tea, whilst The Boy had Pancakes, with a side of Scrambled Eggs and a mocha. The eggs were some of the best I've had, soft and fluffy, just how I like them, and the vine tomatoes cooked to perfection! I hope they expand outside of the airport (I believe this is currently the only location), because there's about five other things on the menu I'd love to try!

After a quick trip to Boots for last minute essentials, we were ready to go! This was the first time I had used the EasyJet app and it made life so much easier. No need to faff around looking for boarding cards for one thing (how does it always end up at the bottom of the bag?!), but also the notifications were so useful. We got an alert with our gate details as soon as they were announced, complete with a map that took us straight there. If you load your boarding card into passbook, it'll stay on your iPhone home screen, no need to unlock, just swipe left and your full boarding card is displayed! It made the whole process so much easier!

Our flight was a little delayed in leaving, we sat on the Tarmac for a good 30 minutes before we could take off, but once we were in the air the pilot made up the time. Two hours later we arrived in Venice. Totally torturous for me, since Venice is number one on my travel bucket list, but we got straight on our coach transfer and headed to the port in Trieste to meet the ship.

We met the ship with time for a quick cocktail out on deck (I opted for some delicious peachy thing, whilst everyone else went for Mojito's!), before getting ready for dinner. We caught the sunset out on deck as we left the port, and it made me a little sad we didn't have time to explore Trieste, it looked so beautiful in the disappearing sunshine!