I’m back again! I’m feeling that it’s better to break things up into smaller bits in Italy. We have done so much and we still have so much to do! So here’s the last couple of days that we have spent in Venice.
Venice
It was a long day of travelling to get from Riomaggiore to Venice. We first caught a train to Monterosso. On our day travelling up the coast the day before we had noticed that trains don’t run on time through there so we opted to take an earlier train rather than the one with a 10 minute stop that Eurail recommended. Thankfully we did because our train arrived and went from Monterosso before the other one got there! We wouldn’t have made our train and we would have lost our seat reservations. Anyway, our next train was to Milan where we had a 40 minute wait before catching an almost empty train to Venice. All up the travelling was about 8 hours. We are noticing that trains aren’t as busy as they have been which is nice! The European school holidays come to an end at the end of August.
Once we got off the train we were about a 10 minute walk from our hotel. We walked along the street and were stoked to be in a place where we could walk freely and not worry about motorbikes, cyclists or cars coming up behind us! Our hotel was in a great location for loads of food places so once we had dropped our things, we went for a walk and found some dinner. We managed to find a small place with really good reviews that seemed a little bit like a local spot. The staff didn’t really speak English which is uncommon for Venice. The food was amazing and we really enjoyed the experience!
We spent the rest of the evening wandering around and seeing what was there. What a crazy place! It’s just footpaths and boats. So cool.
Quick side note on our room. We stayed in a hotel and our room had a shower and a bidet, but no toilet. The toilet was a shared facility outside our room. That’s fine (kinda hostel-like) but I don’t get why there was a bidet in our room. My understanding is that they go hand-in-hand with a toilet. But maybe I’m wrong (or uncultured).
Day One
In the morning we headed out for a day of walking. Really our only goal for the day was to explore and get lost! We started at a coffee shop which I found was nearby and served specialty coffee. The coffee was great and they say that they’re the only coffee roaster left in Venice where you can also sit down and drink a coffee. So that was cool. We walked from there to the other side of Venice where St Marks Square is. It didn’t take very long because the whole set of islands is surprisingly small. It would take us about 20-25 minutes to walk from one side to the other.
We first decided that we would go into Saint Mark’s Basilica. We jumped in the queue and it moved pretty quickly. Inside this church is stunning! It has a whole lot of domes and the ceilings are all tiled in mosaics with so much gold. The floors are tiled with ceramics in all kinds of patterns. The whole place is an incredible work of art. It is definitely worth queuing to get in there!
Next we decided that since we are in Venice, we have to go on a gondola! Miriam has been very excited to do this so after walking around a bit, we found a guy who was waiting for his next customer. He was super friendly and told us about some of the sights as we went around. We even got to go through the grand canal for a bit which was a bit scary! So many boats going everywhere. I definitely preferred going through the smaller canals. It was such an awesome time and we are really glad we did it!
The rest of the day we really just spent getting lost in the streets! There is only so far you can go around Venice and we just loved seeing what was around the next street corner. The weather was pretty good and it felt cool in the narrow alleyways.
In the evening after dinner we went and watched sunset on the edge of the island. It was a really nice way to finish the day.
Day Two
We decided to have a bit of a slow morning because we were feeling a little tired from the walking around the day before! Our plan for the day was to head to Burano Island.
We walked over to the nearest ferry terminal and got on a ferry that took us to the other side of the island. It was pretty full and very hot. You have to wear masks on public transport in Italy so you always hope for air conditioning. Unfortunately the ferries being pretty old don’t have air conditioning!
Once we were on the other side of Venice we switched to a bigger boat to take us out to Burano. It was about a 45 minute journey on a very slow ferry which was extremely noisy. We started by sitting outside where we thought it would be cooler from a bit of breeze, but there was no breeze and the sun was extremely hot on us! The engine was also so loud that we decided to go and sit inside.
Burano is known for its colourful houses and it was so cool to see! Miriam is very inspired by the crazy colours of the houses and thankfully our body corp wouldn’t let us paint our house one of those colours!
We walked up and down the streets and had some lunch. We then wandered around a little bit more before heading back to the wharf to lie under the trees in the shade for a bit. We were then ready for our hot ferry trip back!
In the evening we took the ferry all the way along the grand canal which was really cool! It takes about 30-40 minutes and you get to experience all the crazy traffic of the main highway in Venice! We found a place to have dinner over by St Mark’s Square. It was a nice quiet spot because tourists don’t really go to that side of town in the evening. It was a good way to finish off our time in Venice. We planned to get a gelato on the way back to our hotel, but we were too full!
We loved Venice. It was such a great place to just wander around and see what we could find. We hope that one day we can go back! It’s just another reason to love Italy!
We are now on a road trip around the northern parts of Italy, but that’s for the next blog!
Bye for now! 👋🏻
