Venice!

The last city we visited in Italy was…. Venice!

Venice was definitely my favourite city that we travelled to when we were travelling around Italy. It is actually one of my favourite cities that we were in for the whole trip.

As soon as we stepped out of the train station it was amazing to see all the bridges and the canal and all the little streets. It just looked exactly like all the pictures you see of Venice. It was amazing. 

Our hostel was on the canal and there was a gondola taxi stand right outside the hostel so you could sit on the balcony and see everyone walking past, or the gondolas sailing down the canal. And contrary to what I heard a lot of people say, Venice does not smell at all. There’s a rumour that the canal’s stink but it doesn’t. I never smelt anything the entire time I was there.

Even though our hostel was probably the most run down out of all the one’s we stayed in (the toilets didn’t work properly and neither did the showers and the room was filled with mosquitos), it was the most sociable and fun hostel that we had stayed in up till then. We made friends with a few girls there and spent one night getting rather drunk on a 1 euro bottle of wine. Safe to say I did not feel so great the next morning…. I was walking around the streets of Venice looking out for a spot where I could run to and throw up in without anyone seeing me. Fortunately after I forced myself to have some food, I was fine. If anyone is looking for a party kind of Euro-trip, this is definitely the hostel for you. Its called A Venice Fish, for anyone wanting to stay there.

Venice was filled with tiny little streets all interconnected. We bought a map when we were there but it wasn’t great and we ended up just wandering around until we eventually stumbled upon what we had set out to see. Because it was quite a small place, it was pretty easy to find everything and you could get a lot done in a day. It was quite liberating to not depend on a map as well. You could just wander around freely and know that you wouldn’t get too lost and would come across something at some point.

 Despite being in Venice we never actually went on a gondola or water taxi because they were so expensive! It was 80 euros for a half an hour ride on a gondola!! We did however, do a tour of some of the islands around Venice – Murano, Burano and Torcello – so we did manage to get out on the water. It was a good deal as well. You got to see all 3 islands and the tour was about 4 and a half hours and it was only 20 euros. Murano is the little island where all the famous murano glass is made. Part of the tour was to go into the glass blowing factory and watch a man there at work. It was so impressive what he was doing. A quick few movements and all of a sudden the blob of hot melted glass he was working on was a horse! Burano was so beautiful. It’s a tiny little island full of different brightly coloured houses. its is a fishing island so in the winter when its really dark and foggy, the fishermen needed something to be able to identify their houses – hence, painting them different colours. The last island on the tour was Torcello. Its an island that only has 11 people living on it. Crazy! There’s a famous bridge there as well that has no sides or handrails or anything to it, called Devil’s Bridge. The myth is that a woman, desperate to see her love for one night, sold the souls of her first future 7 children to the Devil in exchange for a chance to see her partner. And so he built a bridge for her to cross over to see her lover. Seems a bit of a steep price to pay just to see your guy for one night. I’d be so mad if I were one of her children!

The only thing about Venice that I didn’t like was the extortionate amount you had to pay to use the public toilets. 1.50!! So basically once you left your hostel/hotel, you were screwed until you got back unless you wanted to fork out a lot of money every time you needed the toilet. We refused to use them out of principle.

Overall, Venice was so beautiful and we had such a fun time there. I would definitely go back for another holiday.