Last week we were away on a four-day trip to Venice! This was a group trip and the first time either of us had been away abroad with any of our friends. In the 18 years (!) I’ve known my friends I’ve been to plenty of holiday cottages in the UK with them, but we’d never been to an airport and boarded a plane together before.
I had been to Venice with a friend in 2017 and had an absolutely amazing time. That trip was so wonderful, and I’d already gotten to do everything I wanted to do, so I could go into this more relaxed about the lack of an itinerary than I probably would have been otherwise.
Personally, when I travel, I like to have a plan for what I’m doing, and when and have as much as possible organised beforehand (my 2017 trip was very carefully planned!). When I travel with people (namely my family!) who take a more aimless “go with the flow” approach it can make me a bit anxious and frustrated. This trip was a surprise for my friend’s husband’s 40th so there couldn’t be a lot of planning before with so much down to what the birthday boy might want to do (and also their child!), and he is a much more laid back “we’ll wander around and see” type of guy when on holiday!
Since my fiance is also a big fan of the itinerary (our holiday to Orlando had an entire spreadsheet!) he couldn’t cope for long with the lack of direction, so on our first night we planned what the two of us wanted to do for the next two days, and most of the others ended up following us!
I know I said this after our trip to Carcassonne when we made the mistake of letting his mother take charge of the planning, but really we have to remember next time that we both need to take the lead on organising travel plans or we will get frustrated! I need to let that anxiety override my in-the-moment group social anxiety over taking charge!
This all worked out fine though (aside from two meals in awful restaurants due to lack of planning!) and we got to see and do plenty! It was a lovely mix of time with friends and time to explore just the two of us.
We did all the usual sights in Piazza San Marco. Being February they were doing quite a bit of off-season building work, which made for some funny photographs when we got the angles right!
Last time I was in Venice we didn’t go inside the Basilica because it was Easter weekend, so that was a fun new experience for me. My mind was blown by the thousands of tiny little gold tiles.
Some of the group had wanted to go up on the roof but got very confused about how to do that and gave up! I think you needed that museum ticket, but it wasn’t very clear.
It was just lovely to be in Venice again! I love the lack of cars and the mystery in the maze of alleys. We got very lucky with the weather! I assumed it would probably rain but we had bright blue skies for most of the time! It was still really cold with an icy wind (3-4 C most days), but without the sun it would have been a bit miserable!
Libreria Acqua Alta
Another place I didn’t get to last time was the bookshop Libreria Acqua Alta. This is just a quaint little shop with a we’ll-use-whatever approach to shelving and home to several cats.
It is very cute but… If you time it wrong it’s a nightmare tourist trap. I don’t know how they sell anything in the high season, I could barely move in there for the people. It’s very narrow so you just end up stuck queueing for the photo opportunity at the end while stressed staff yell at dickheads trying to do full photoshoots to just take one photo and move on.
Reader, I hated it. I got a few nice photos (without anyone else in!) but after 2 minutes in that place, I knew I’d made a huge mistake and couldn’t wait to get out! I get getting stuck behind a frustrating woman who kept blocking the way taking hundreds of photos of the same fucking thing.
I didn’t get any chance to browse the books (though they were in Italian, obviously!) or postcards in there.
It is very cool though, I did like this quiet area that was off the side and out of the main queueing!
Outside they have piles of old books which are rotting from the damp (and the floods). It looks cool but it made me sad when I thought about how they’re all ruined.
Also disappointing not to see any cats, but I do not blame them for hiding!
Anthropomorphic Cats
One of my favourite things about Venice is the number of souvenirs and puppets that feature anthropomorphic cats! Last time I came back with two postcards I still have framed and my favourite bookmark. This time I wasn’t allowed to buy any more (just a postcard for our cat sitter!) but I did enjoy spotting them all!
This was my favourite cat puppet but there were so many! I love his foppish hair, it reminds me of a Japanese anime character. And his creepy human hand!
It reminded me I really want to try some anthropomorphic kitty embroidery. One of my favourite artists has a kit for a kitty mermaid I want to try!
Speed boat
One of the most stressful elements of the trip ended up as a highlight! The original plan was to get the same water bus back to the airport that was caught from it. I had been dubious about this plan because of how small that thing was, and sure enough, we found it kept going by our stop because it was already full!
Instead of risking waiting another 20 mins to see if we could get on the next one (which takes 40 mins to get to the airport), we agreed to instead book a water taxi to ensure we definitely wouldn’t miss our flight!
A water taxi was €180 so no small expense! We split it between 7 of us so it was about £22 each, easily the most expensive taxi I’ve gotten! But it turned out to be totally worth it, he got us there in about 20 minutes and gave us quite the ride!
My friend’s husband had wanted to get a speedboat originally from the airport but this got shot down as an extravagance (plus it only fit 6!) so this was as close as he could get to that experience and I was happy he got that in the end.
Honestly, with the sun shining and the sky blue, it was the perfect way to leave Venice. We had huge smiles on our faces!
I love Venice – would love to visit again. Thanks for sharing your pics