Having visited Paris over the new year the boyfriend and I decided to go one better and see the stunning city of Venice to celebrate the 5 years we have been together, and it was absolutely perfect. However there were a few mishaps, and if you're planning a trip there anytime soon this might be a handy guide to all the things you may not yet know...
Departing at 6:20am with Ryan Air I felt shattered from clocking off work at 23:00 the night before but estatic that I was getting away for a few days. 4 days, 3 nights to be precise. We landed after an hour and a half and I couldn't wait to see the sights.
Okay guys
Lesson One: Water Taxi's
If you're getting transfers from the airport to Venice, bare in mind that cars/busses/coaches cannot get onto the main land, therefore you must either get a water taxi or the monorail. If you are travelling on a budget, I promise you despite how appealing the water taxi looks, make sure you find the monorail, for a 5 minute journey it cost us €40! They saw us coming I reckon.
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Anyway we finally got to our hotel,The
Casa Sant Andrea, best described as cheap and cheerful with a rustic exterior. We walked through to the reception, greeted by a less than smiley lady with bright red hair and thick rimmed glasses, she checked us in, handed us a paper weight in the shape of a bell with a door key attached and gestured up the stairs. After walking up 2 flights of stairs and round a few little corridors we finally found room 209. Not the Ritz but not prison either!
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After checking in, we just spent the first day finding our bearings and exploring, and it really was incredible. Finding our way into the mist of Venice was easy enough; it was like heading into a jungle of little bridges, cafes, pizza parlours, gelato stalls and fancy shops selling Venician glass, carnival masks and stunning jewellery. You couldn't always find your way back easily, but then again when a place is this beautiful you don't mind getting lost in it.
We had a lovely day just seeing the sights, and I had my first bolognese in Italy, tried tiramisu ice-cream and as you can see from the picture and it was delicious!
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That evening we discovered a lovely little restaurant along the canal, it was small and we could sit outside which was nice. We tucked into bread and oil, and tomatoes and mozzarella for start and then carbonara and pizza for mains. I also had the famous Bellini drink, made from peach puree and prosecco, officially my new favourite cocktail! However...
Lesson Two: Service Charge
Make sure you always check before choosing a restaurant if they have a service charge, they caught us off guard and whacked 14% of our total bill on top, not ideal for budgeting travellers!
That night we also found a magnum shop where you paid to decorate the outsite of a magum ice-cream and get a free expresso with it! James scoffed the ice-cream and I had the
expresso.
When we woke up Monday morning, it wasn't to the sound of birds or the smell of coffee, it was to the most awful sounding bell that was placed just a few yards from our hotel. The unattractive bell tower gave out an even more unattractive noise at 7:45 every morning. That first Monday morning James shot out of bed still delerious from sleep thinking there was a fire.
Once again we spent the day exploring, unfortunatley in gloomy weather. This time trying to find things specifically, we wanted to find the Rialto bridge and San Marco square although Venice isn't one for being helpful with directions...
Lesson Three: Street Signs
Do not bother relying on street signs, the fact is you are on an island and you will come to what you're looking for eventually, and if you're in a hurry and don't have time for getting lost in Venice, make sure you get a good map, as most street signs look like this..
Once we finally got past the signs... We did get onto both Rialto Bridge and San Marco Square, both absolutely incredible in their own right. Rialto bridge looks over the most beautiful part of the grand canal and it was my favourite spot in Venice; when the sun is shining and the sky is blue, a photo cannot do it justice.
San Marco Square is probably my second favourite part of Venice. There you had the incredible St Mark Basilica, famous for its mosaic walls and ceiling, it was beautiful to see, we went onto the roof top where you could also look down to the square. The square itself was lined with coffee shops, fancy restaurants and unaffordable jewlers, I think mentally James and I spent millions choosing out watches and rings we couldn't afford!
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| Rialto Bridge |
The beautiful square however was swarmed with street sellers and beggers wandering between tourists trying to get you to give up your money...
Lesson Four: Selfie Sticks
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If you don't own a selfie stick, you will do by the time you leave! We were swamped with selfie stick sellers on the streets, we even brought ours out at night just to make a point we had one so they would leave us alone!
After leaving San Marco Square we just walked and walked, getting lost down little alleyways and over bridges, peering into shop windows and stopping for calzone for lunch! Delicious.
We also found a nice little restaurant in the depths of Venice and with no service charge either! Two main meals each for €18 perfect! We had seafood pasta and fried seafood, something a bit unsual but very tasty, I also tried a drink called Aperol Spritz, everyone seemed to drink it here so I thought I would give it a go. The best way I can describe it is a bitter fizzy orange juice, not my cup of tea but obviously everyone else's!
Our last full day and night was our anniversary, 5 years of being together and waking up in Venice, you can't go wrong. Apart from that bell waking us up, deary me. We were very lucky, the weather was perfect with blue skies and sunshine. We got ice-cream at around 11, tucked into a tasty lunch and then got a coffee at a tucked away cafe we visited a few times whilst we were there. I had the most incredible hot chocolate, like liquid gold, and a soft plain pastry to dunk into it, recommended by a little Italian barista man!
We then done the one thing everyone comes to Venice to do... The Gondola. We went at 16:45 just as the sun was at its peak and it was absolutely beautiful.
After the gondola ride we searched in a few more shops and wandered the streets at dusk, I truley loved being in Venice, it had such a great feel to it, although, I was in a way ready to go home...
Lesson 5: Don't outstay your welcome
Venice is a wonderful city that I would reccomend anyone to visit, but once you have seen San Marco Square, Rialto Bridge, tasted the coffee, ice-cream and pizza, and rode the gondola, for any young person you're pretty much ready to go home. We left Venice for our transfers at 19:00 and we felt like we really had been there just a tad too long.
Our last meal that night was enjoyed by the grand canal right next to Rialto Bridge, despite the bill being way out of our budget we both had the most amazing meals, and our waiter was just hilarious, singing our dishes names as he served them to us, it was fabulous.
The only other exciting thing I can really tell you is that we did discover the monorail, and when we got to Treviso Airport our plane was delayed and we had completely blown all of our money. Here's your last lesson.
Lesson 6: Airport Delays
BE PREPARED. Scraping the bottom of my purse I managed to pull together enough change for a bag of crisps which we ate routinely with James taking one, then me taking one, and also having intervals in eating to break up the delay time. You don't want to be in that situation. Trust me.
I hope you've enjoyed having a read of our four day adventure in Venice, and for those of you who are thinking of visiting Venice I hope my tips have helped a tad. It really is a wonderful city and everyone should go and see it once.
See you on my next adventure!
Jadeene. x
So Friday just gone I was at another music event with James at the famous
