Our much anticipated trip to Venice rolled around incredibly quickly. In fact when we booked our luxury trip way back in March, it was hard to believe we would ever get here. Which is why we found ourselves a little shocked come Friday morning when we arrived at Gatwick, luggage checked ( a real luxury given we weren’t flying a budget airline) and were boarding our plane, Venice bound, with what looked like London’s elderly community. I swear - aside from us two, there was not an able body on that flight.
I didn’t really believe we would ever get here, and it wasn’t until our bus dropped us off at the train station onto one of the 117 islands that make up Venice, that I truly believed I was here. We stepped off the bus and straight away drew in our breaths. This term is all too often bandied about (especially in this blog!) but Venice truly does take your breath away. Oh my god it is truly beautiful. At the risk of sounding like a Hallmark card here, it is picturesque, romantic and ominous all at the same time. As I said, it is also built upon 117 islands and even Abel Tasman wouldn’t be able to navigate his way around this city without getting lost more than a few times, before giving up the search for pizza and a litre of wine. On that note, we found our hotel after taking a few wrong twists and turns, and were greeted with a stunning wee boutique hotel right on the Grand Canal. We could have wept with joy – especially when we were told we had been upgraded to a suite. Lord have mercy, this was just too much excitement to take. He must have been testing us though as there was still further joy to be had, and when the porter opened up the room to our gold palace, complete with two bathrooms, an old-fashioned princess bed, televisions behind mirrors and his ‘n’ hers sink, I knew we had died and gone to heaven. I was half expecting the staff to come in 10 minutes later as we were jumping on the bed with joy, with smirks on their faces saying something like ‘You gullible f***s – you didn’t really think this was yours did you? Get your crap and get to the dorm.’
Because of the beauty of our dorm, the entire weekend passed on an utter high – glorious beauty outside, glorious beauty inside. There was never an ugly moment. We bathed in the luxury of it all – quite literally, Brad had nine baths over the four days lavishly pouring in bath salts and foam every five minutes!
Friday night was spent bathing, wandering, giggling and squealing at every turn as we reached for the camera every 30 seconds, as well as eating copious amounts of pizza.
After a luxury night’s sleep in our princess bed, complete with draw back curtains, we were up and at our buffet breakfast hungry as could be, despite our carbohydrate-loaded dinner the night before. It was at this meal I made history, by having my first ever coffee. I had made a few half-hearted attempts in the past, a sip here, a sip there, followed by the screwing up of the nose and a quick sip of orange juice to take the taste out of my mouth, but I decided that as I was in Italy it would be absolutely criminal to not have a cappuccino. I was a little hesitant, but it’s a little like riding a bike, once you get the hang of it you never look back. Suffice to say, I had quite a few of these fluffy gems while I was in the land of red, white and green.
Peaking on caffeine, as experience previously unbeknownst to me, we launched ourselves onto Venice overcome with excitement. The fog had lifted and oh what a sight! It reminded me of Iceland, where we were overcome with photo-taking, ‘oh my god’ exclaiming fury, as we hopped from one foot to the other in excitement. Brad reigned me in gently after one self-take too many and managed to drag me away from the grand canal (at this stage we literally had made it only two metres from our hotel) and we set off to explore. We spent the day exploring every beautiful nook and cranny that we could, past exquisite walkways, gondola-laden canals, markets selling fresh fruit and fish, plus countless Venetian masks. To say we had a ball is an understatement and as we wandered through the most amazing sights, I literally couldn’t remember being so utterly, blissfully content.
While we had visited San Marco Square the night before to see Venice’s most famous site, the San Marco Basilica, we hadn’t been able to see it in all its glory on account of the fog. Boy is it beautiful. We had a look around inside, lit a few candles and sat back to soak it up. I love visiting churches in Europe – they’re so warm, welcoming and breathtakingly beautiful. We watched a little Italian family squabble over who was going to light the candle, only to have the little girl win and almost burn the place down, before wandering outside to feed the pigeons. I was utterly against the idea (rats of the sky aren’t they Kate?), but Brad was dead set and after tourists flocked around to see the crazy bird man in all his glory, I decided to give it a whirl. As you can see my reaction wasn’t quite the same.
By this stage we decided to head off for some lunch. Were we hungry? Absolutely not, but when in Italy after all. We found a delightful trattoria where we stuffed ourselves with more pizza and wine – such a hard life. We were having a good old time relaxing and ear-wigging on a neighbouring couples argument ( well I was, while Brad acted all holier-than-thou), but after emptying our bottle of wine we decided to set off. We didn’t get far as I spotted a fantastic mask shop and had to go in.
Masks are absolutely everywhere you look in Venice and we decided to be ultra careful around our choice – not to be ripped off, but not buying a token tourist option either. I had a whale of a time in this shop, which Brad soon tired of and waited outside, staring in through the shop window like a sulky toddler. The Italian shop-keeper managed to communicate to me in broken English: “I think that he does not want to be here, although sad for him, he will be here until he comes back inside and give you his idea.” You don’t need to speak English, the look of a fed-up male while his female shops is simply universal. I eventually made my decisions (after Brad came back in of course) and walked away feeling like the happiest girl on the planet – smug in the knowledge that I hadn’t been ripped off and had the world’s prettiest, one-of-a-kind mask. I was simply looking for an excuse to wear it, even suggesting I might wear it to the opera the following night much to Brad’s distress. I walked around bathed in post-purchase glow for all of two minutes, before I saw the exact same mask for 6€ at a shop down the road. The exact same one. FARK it! Brad on the other hand, selected his below budget, further fueling the taste of bitterness which was left in my mouth. It was only after he paid twice the price for a present for Manaia from a vendor down the road that my glory returned – I turned to him a tad relieved, a tad-smug and comforted him with the fact that ‘we all make mistakes’… The fact that his was only a difference of a 1€ didn’t matter one iota to me.
Late afternoon we headed back to our gold palace for more bathing, relaxing and reading, before we bundled up into our jackets, gloves and scarves and set off in search of dinner. We had quite a few recommendations up our sleeves and after wandering around exploring for a few hours we decided to go with our own instincts and went to this crazy American-themed Italian place. By that stage we were too hungry to care, but it was actually really good. Needless to say we ate more than we’ve ever ate before and waddled out of the restaurant two hours later, well-fed, thirst satiated with house red wine and ready for bed.
After further cappuccinos and espressos, we set off on Sunday to Murano – a small island which produces the world famous Murano glass. Our hotel offered a free water taxi service to the island, complete with a tour and demonstration. It was a nice visit, although we didn’t purchase anything on account of not having a spare few thousand in the bank account! That aid, it was so interesting to see how they make sculptures and we also got a free tour on water, although fog diminished a lot of the view.
By the time we were ready to go back to the mainland the fog was so bad they couldn’t send taxis out, so we caught the Vaporetto, or water bus, which actually turned out to be the best option as we got off at a different point and explored a whole new side to the world’s most beautiful city. We wandered and got lost for three or so hours, before heading back to the hotel for a rest for an hour.
We had purchased tickets for the opera the day before, getting A-class tickets – only the best for us, and had decided to have a picnic in our hotel before the show. Popping out for a quick pizza (so good, so cheap, why not?), we went back to a spread of wine (a plastic bottle filled up at a wee store for 2€!), olives, Italian biscuits and bread – delish. We nattered away for a few hours and then set off to see La Traviata – North America’s third most popular Opera don’t you know. It was really great and the building itself was worth paying to see. Brad particularly loved it (closet fan) and the two hours absolutely flew by. Even though it was in Italian you could tell what was happening as we had been given a sheet with a synopsis of the story, and they were such great actors. It was great to be able to see an Opera in Venice, but sadly Brad didn’t let me wear my mask.
We woke up on Monday, dreading the thought of leaving. Thankfully our flight was at night so we had all day to enjoy the city, kicking off with the fact that we had amazingly timed our visit with Festival Madonna della Salute – a religious festival in which locals give thanks to Madonna. The festival was held at the most beautiful domed cathedral which sits at the entrance of the grand canal and is such a postcard site. We hadn’t been there yet, as we’d been saving it for Monday. There was so much going on, both inside and outside, and we spent some time inside the church watching everyone light the world’s biggest candles and sing in Italian. We then found ourselves in the food part of the festival, where we munched on a few delicious delicacies – arancini balls (risotto, cheese and mushroom deep fried!) and candied strawberries on a stick – no prizes for guessing who ate what. We were stuffed, but managed to squeeze a bit extra in. When in Venice after all.
The rest of the day was spent soaking up the ambience. Eventually the ‘I’m so full I feel sick’ feeling settled down, and we decided to stretch our bellies even more with one last pizza each. The pizzas in Italy aren’t just regular size – they’re so big they don’t even fit on a big pizza plate. I couldn’t even provide an NZ example, they’re that big. I went for my usual – a delicious number covered in aubergine, sausage, ricotta and emmental, while Brad opted for spicy sausage, cheese and olives. Mouth wateringly good and the perfect last meal. We were still full when we arrived back in London seven hours later!
It was hard to leave Venice – the four day lifestyle of luxury, delicious food and wine was all too tempting. If all else fails in London, I’m heading back to this pretty city to open up my own rip-off mask shop. There’s money to be made from mugs like me!
xx
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