One of the countries in Europe that I had often fancied visiting but had never had the opportunity to go to was Italy, so when we were looking for somewhere cheap to fly off to in the Easyjet sale and Milan popped up, I was already sold.
Now you may be wondering why I’m talking about Venice when we went to Milan, well that’s because on our first full day in Italy we decided it was the best opportunity for us to visit Venice during our short trip.
Up at 5:30am on the Saturday morning, which after a long day of travelling, losing an hour of time from clock differences was a struggle, but we had a good day of exploring ahead to look forward to in a city that I had always wanted to visit.
The train to Venice from Milan was a thing of beauty. Large seats with plenty of space, wide aisles and even meeting rooms on board. I’ve yet to experience anything close to this in the UK and it looked like one big moving productivity machine.
We arrived in Venice slightly delayed but just after 9am and walked out of the station to be greeted by our first canal. It was exactly as I had imagined and a whole lot more. There’s just something incredible about an entire city built on water that takes your breath away, no matter how much you think you are prepared to see a city built on water.
The smell that everyone seems to harp on about when talking about Venice didn’t exist. I couldn’t smell a thing.
I knew I had fallen in love there and then.
You know when cities do that to you? You step outside for the first time and BAM, you love it. Barcelona was the same for me.
If I’m going to be honest, I think Venice may have stolen its crown.
Wandering down the tight maze like alleyways is a mission in itself with signs pointing in all different directions, I found myself just walking around with my mouth open the whole time like that scene in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.
You can just picture how life would have been hundreds of years ago and the history just oozing the buildings at every turn. No cars, bustling markets with sellers shouting their latest deals.
Every time you cross one of the smaller canals, you still find yourself stopping and taking in the sights from either side of the bridge that you’re on as the sun leaves the most incredible shadows highlighting some of the best details of each building. A proper photographers dream.
Now I can imagine that we visited Venice during one of the quieter periods of the year and it was still quite busy, but I can bet that if you go during the main holidays that it would be one of those unbearable places full of tourists trying to get that gram shot.
If you’re considering visiting then definitely aim to do it outside of the usual holiday periods and really get a feel for how the city is.
We spent the day just wandering around. Soaked up the atmosphere in Piazza Saint Marco (St. Marks Square). Took a short boat ride to Burano to see the multi-coloured houses and just enjoyed the short time that we had there.
Our train back to Milan was at 6pm and I’m not going to lie, I was pining to go back to Venice before I even left.