Italy - Venice

We turned up in Venice with no hotel, something that all the guidebooks say not to do, but they were all too expensive so we hadn't booked one. We thought we would have to stay on the mainland and bus into Venice each day. But we arrived at the train station and got offered a room for a good price (by Venice standards) of 30 euro each per night. So we were pretty happy to be able to stay on the island.

Venice is a series of islands and reclaimed land, the water is only about 6-8 feet deep and most of the building are built on pylons. There are no cars or bikes on the island, you either walk or take a boat. It is a really beautiful city, with ancient buildings and a lot of character.

Rialto bridge and the Duke's palace

It is the most expensive city in Italy, and filled to the brim with tourists, on the main walking routes anyway. Its great to be able to step off a couple of streets and find really quiet roads and alleys.

Venetian masks

We ate lots more gelato and pizza. We found a couple of places that did delicious pizzas, and had two evening meals sitting beside the canal with pizza and beer or Lambrusco. Could be worse!

We were there 3 nights, one day we got a pass for the big boat buses and travelled to a couple of other islands. We went to Murano island which is famous for hand blown glass. We saw a demonstration that was pretty amazing. There is a lot of beautiful glass products there, and a lot of tacky stuff too.

A horse we saw getting made

Then we went to Lido island which is bigger than Venice and has cars, so looses a bit of its charm. But they do have a beach which we went to and had a swim. It was such a gorgeous hot day and although the water was pretty cold it was lovely to be able to have a swim in early spring!

On the last night we stayed with a friend of Teresa's who lives in the old Jewish quarter of Venice. She had a lovely apartment and it was nice to meet and chat with a local.

We didn't get a gondola because it was so expensive, but we saw some really cool ones, one had a musician and singer going around with them (we would hate to think how much they paid..). It was great travelling around a bit on the bigger boats though. We went to an area of the island called gardenia which has a big park and sat and chilled out with a picnic and books one day.

Gondolas and gondoliers

The main square in Venice has a lot of the museums around it. We were all museum'ed out from Florence so didn't go to any. There are also amazing cafes with musicians in tuxedo's where you will pay NZ $20 for a coffee (!!). When it floods in Venice the square can get covered in water and the gondoliers can pont across it.

Tourist nuns at San Marco Square