Italy
Leg 7: Bologna, Venice & The Long Journey Home
Our last few days with friends at the villa were absolutely wonderful, but it was time to head back out on our own for the final stretch of the trip.
Day 16 — Travel Day to Bologna
We started the morning with cappuccinos and croissants at the villa café before packing up and heading out. The travel plan for the day sounded manageable enough: car ride to the train station, two trains, a short walk to a bus, then another short walk to the hotel.
Simple in theory.
Train #1 was running late, so we rushed to make Train #2… only to discover Train #2 was running even later. Very Italian travel energy.
Once we finally arrived in Bologna, we confidently boarded a bus that we were certain would get us close to the hotel.
It did not.
Instead, we found ourselves dragging luggage through humid 85-degree weather on what became a three-mile accidental hike across Bologna. It had looked like a straight shot, but there were no ways to go straight through - we ended up walking around a giant circle through industrial areas to get to our hotel. At one point we finally found a grocery store. We were sweaty and desperate, trying to find someone who could help us call a cab. No luck.
Eventually, my husband opened the Uber app to try to grab a taxi. The first two drivers canceled on us and we were feeling a bit defeated. But the third finally rescued us and got us to the hotel.
Immediate showers were non-negotiable. We were literally dripping.
To make things even better, the next morning we discovered there was a local bus stop only a block away from our hotel the entire time. Turns out the local bus system doesn’t use the app we were using, which would have been very useful information about three sweaty miles earlier. Hard lesson learned.
After all of that, we decided we had officially earned something special.
So while regrouping in the hotel lobby over appetizers, we started looking at train schedules and made a completely unplanned decision: A day trip to Venice.
This had not been on our itinerary at all, and we knew it would mean an extremely long day, but my husband knew how badly I wanted to see Venice while we were in Italy. After 16 days of trains, heat, hauling luggage, and figuring things out on the fly, he still made it happen for me.
Honestly, I felt incredibly blessed in that moment.
It would be an early night because the next morning we were headed to Venice.
8451 steps (all of them with luggage)
Day 17 — Venice Day Trip
6:30 a.m. breakfast at the hotel, then off we went again.
We walked to the bus stop just a block away and relaxed for the 45-minute route to the train station, which honestly felt like a major victory after the previous day. From there, we boarded a train to Venice, scheduled for about 2 hours and 10 minutes.
On the train we met a sweet young couple from the UK and Italy, and throughout the day we kept crossing paths with kind people. At lunch, we chatted with two cousins from Raleigh, North Carolina who travel together every year. At dinner, we met two friends from Toronto who were wrapping up a cruise in Venice.
One thing I’ll say about travel: people really are one of the best parts.
And Venice? It somehow exceeded every expectation I had.
The canals, the narrow walkways, the old buildings that seemed frozen in time. The entire city feels surreal. Everywhere you turn looks like a postcard. We already agreed that someday we need to come back and actually stay there longer.
At one point we wandered much farther from the train station than intended and ended up speed-walking back through the heat trying not to miss dinner and our train. Worth it, but by then we were looking slightly run down.
The train ride back was delayed multiple times, so by the time we got back to Bologna around 9:15 p.m. the buses had stopped running. Thankfully, now that we understood the taxi situation a little better, getting back to the hotel was easy.
It ended up being about a 15-hour day, and honestly, our bodies were feeling every minute of it.
A note about the hotel: It was very classy, offered free appetizers with drink purchases, and had a decent restaurant. But it was extremely far from everything. It was directly across from a low budget strip mall, but somehow not near actual restaurants. Dinner at the hotel was really our only option.
17,090 steps.
Day 18 — Rest Day in Bologna
Today was exactly what we needed.
I slept until 8:45 a.m. and apparently really needed it. We had breakfast at the hotel, wandered through a few shops in the strip mall, and otherwise kept the day intentionally slow.
No trains. No rushing. No luggage marathons.
Just a quiet reset day before the final travel stretch.
Day 19 — Back Toward Rome
We checked out at 9 a.m. and headed back to the Bologna train station by bus.
The journey to Muratella (near our Rome airport hotel) involved three trains and a 15-minute walk, but compared to some of our earlier adventures, this barely registered as difficult anymore. Travel really lowers your standards in fascinating ways.
By the time we arrived, we were starving, so naturally we made a stop at our favorite food truck (we had stayed here before) for sandwiches and beers around 2:30 in the afternoon.
Honestly? One of the best meals of the trip.
The rest of the day was spent by the pool, followed by dinner at the hotel restaurant and the less glamorous task of reorganizing suitcases for the flight home.
Tomorrow would be a long one.
7781 steps
Days 20 — The Travel Day Home
Our 5:45 a.m. wake-up call (okay the phone alarm…) immediately turned chaotic when we discovered our flight had been delayed three hours, meaning we would miss our JFK connection.
At the exact same time, Dave woke up with his back completely thrown out.
Not ideal.
We managed to rebook our connection flight (JFK to Seattle) for one leaving three hours later, which at least bought us enough time to have breakfast at the hotel before catching the shuttle to the airport.
At the gate, I squeezed in one final decaf cappuccino while we waited for our first flight of the day.
Boarding involved being bused out to a plane parked somewhere in what felt like another country entirely. Eventually we took off, even later than expected, and settled in for the flight to JFK.
When we finally landed at JFK, we were over 90 minutes behind schedule (technically 4½ hours, but who was counting?) and after sitting that long, Dave could barely walk.
Then came one of those moments where you just know God stepped in, because someone showed up at exactly the right time.
A man pushing an empty wheelchair happened to be coming our direction, and I flagged him down immediately. Absolute lifesaver.
What followed was almost an Olympic-level airport sprint: Global Entry, Customs, grabbing luggage off the carousel, rechecking bags through TSA, and somehow making our way across JFK. It wasn’t nearly as crazy as catching our connection to get to Rome, but a close second.
Without Global Entry, and honestly without that man and the wheelchair, we would never have made our flight.
We reached the gate right as boarding began.
On the next flight (JFK to SEA), which had looked completely full when we rebooked it just hours earlier, my husband and I somehow ended up with three seats to ourselves. This allowed him to stretch out just a bit which was an absolute lifesaver for his back. Our flight sat on the tarmac forever and finally departed about 70 minutes late (but somehow we still landed nearly on time).
On the JFK to SEA flight we sat across the sweetest mom traveling alone with a baby and young daughter. She had flown from Prague to JFK, and was now headed to Seattle, followed by another flight to Wenatchee and a drive to a small town by herself to meet up with her husband.
Meanwhile, her kids behaved like tiny exhausted angels.
By the time we landed in Seattle the medication I gave Dave had started working enough that he could walk again, as long as I carried most of the bags.
We grabbed our luggage, met my brother-in-law for the drive home, and finally walked into the house around 12:45 a.m.
The house was spotless. The puppy was thrilled. And our pet sitter, a high school senior from our Church had not only kept everything alive for three weeks, but had washed the sheets before leaving.
Honestly? A teenager? The real MVP of the trip.
After 20 days plus travel (we counted the first two travel days as day 0), countless trains, delayed flights, unforgettable food, beautiful chaos, and more steps than I ever want to calculate, we were finally home.
And somehow already talking about Italy again.
9600 steps
One final note from Italy: street art seems to be encouraged, or at least accepted, in many areas. The overall feel can be very different from the U.S. You may not always see manicured landscaping or freshly painted buildings, but there’s a lived-in authenticity to it all that becomes part of the charm.