Venice airport is modern, but woefully too small and understaffed. However we made it to Amsterdam where we spent a lovely week back in 2002. Sadly the area around Amsterdam Centraal is even tackier and very touristy.
Tomorrow we board our cruise for seven days down the Rhine.
A couple of other thoughts.
We had been warned by friends and by seeing signs in many places, Paris in particular, to be wary of pick pockets. The same thing was a problem in Rome so we were told. Thankfully we saw no evidence of this and also saw no 'gangs' of Romanian gypsy girls who apparently mob women in particular to relieve them of their cash. On our first night in Rome we met an American woman who had lost 80 Euros at the turnstiles of the Metro station we used by such a gang but we never saw anything dodgy.
The other scam we were warned about was people grabbing your suitcase at train stations and helping you, without being asked, to put your case on the train. At first this seems like a generous act, until they hold out their hand and ask for 50 Euro. ($65 approx).
Again we never saw anyone trying to do this, although we did meet an Australian guy in Venice to whom this had happened in Rome.
I'm not saying this doesn't happen but we made sure we were always aware of who was around us.
In Paris and funnily enough on the Venitian island of Burano, we had people asking us to sign petitions. We could never understand of what value a foreign signature would be on a petition. Again, we walked away from these approaches.
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