My parents were going on a cruise that started in Venice, so they called up and asked if I would like to use my last (precious!) vacation day to meet them there for the weekend before they set sail. Obviously, this was a no brainer.
When we decided to move to England, this was the sort of trip I imagined taking. Oh, just a weekend jaunt to Venice, no big deal! And now that we’ve navigated it once, I can see a lot more of these happening when my vacation days replenish!
We left from Luton Airport, which is one we hadn’t tried yet. It’s north of London, so unlike Gatwick where you have to go south through London to get there, or Heathrow, where you have to go into London and then take the tube east (see a pattern?), it's a straight train ride + short shuttle avoiding London altogether. It takes only two hours vs the three hours the others take. Highly recommend.
Our flight left early, so we went down to Luton the evening before. Our hotel was a 15-minute walk to the airport, and it was really easy the next morning to get to where we needed to be, even in the darkness and unpleasant rain.
We flew EasyJet, our first time doing one of the low-budget airlines. I was pretty nervous, having heard all kinds of stories about their strict rules, but it was actually really easy (pun intended) and fairly pleasant. We opted for the ticket that gives you “speedy boarding” and allows you to have a cabin bag and a personal item.
Side note: Lately we’ve been traveling with bags we got from Osprey, and we really love them. Traveling with a backpack is so easy; you just grab it and go. You can definitely stuff them to capacity (see: trip to USA), but for a quick weekend away we were able to cinch them down to well within the allowed size.
My only warning about EasyJet is to pay attention to the ticket – it had two times on it, which I assumed were departure time (correct) and boarding time (incorrect). The second time was actually the time the gate closes (half an hour before departure), so when our gate was finally announced an hour before the flight, we thought we had plenty of time to get there before they actually started boarding. Not so! They started boarding immediately, which thankfully I noticed after I glanced back up at the board and it said “boarding.” So we actually didn’t get our speedy boarding on the way there, but luckily there was still room for our bags in the overhead compartment.
Less than two hours later, we were in Venice! We had booked tickets on a ferry to get from Marco Polo airport to the city. It was about a 40-minute ride with one stop on the way. Our hotel was off the beaten path, in a more residential area of Venice, which meant it was very quiet and unassuming. We got there before my parents, so we dropped off our bags and went for a walk. We knew Friday was likely to be the only sunny day of the trip.
In case you don’t know, which I didn’t really, Venice is situated on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. I mean, I knew that Venice was built on water, but I didn’t really understand the implications of that (or had never stopped to think about what that actually meant). It means that taxis are water taxis. That when you’re trying to navigate, you run into dead ends because there’s a canal but no bridge. When there are bridges, they can get crowded because it’s the only way to get to the other side of the street at that point. That people have steps leading into the water and certainly it must get into their first floors from time to time. And so on.
Another interesting thing about Venice, probably not if you thought about it, but again, not much of my brain has been devoted to it before this point, is no cars! No motorized vehicles of any kind! Basically no wheels of any kind! While it seemed like everyone owned a motorboat (there were so many parked along the side of the canals), foot is the only way to get around the bulk of the islands. In fact, as I was trying to find rules related to bicycles, scooters, etc. after we noticed none of these were around, I came across all of these rules about how to comport yourself in Venice. Good thing we didn’t accidentally violate any of these! For your future trip, do not...
- Lean against storefronts
- Picnic
- Lie down on public benches
- Feed pigeons (I support this ban.)
- Buy from street traders
- Stand still on bridges (definitely broken nonstop)
- Drink on the street after 8 p.m.
- Swim in the canals (you really, really wouldn’t want to do this anyway)
- Affix padlocks to bridges (save it for Paris!)
- Wear a bikini (in case you thought you were in Venice Beach?)
- Be bare-chested (at least the rules are gender-equal?)
- Ride a bicycle in the city center
- Walk a bicycle through the city center
Friday was All Saints' Day, which meant it was a holiday for Italy. Venice was crowded that day. Like can’t-walk-through-a-narrow-street, if-there’s-a-stampede-I’m-gonna-die, kind of crowded. Fortunately, it was only on a few of the main streets and bridges, but it was unpleasant. The woman at the hotel said it was really unusual to be like that except during Carnival.
Day One we walked around, had cannolis, had pizza and pasta at separate meals and became acquainted with the impossibility of walking in a straight line from point A to B.
Day Two we had a boat tour of three other islands - Murano, Burano and Torcello - and a gondola ride in the afternoon. There was a light-to-moderate rain all day, but being from Seattle and England, we pulled up our hoods and powered through.
Murano is known for its glass making, so we all piled into this little studio and watched the master create this horsie out of nothing. It was pretty incredible to watch how with fewer than 15 pulls with his plier-things, a horse appeared from a glob of glass.
Then we were ushered into the souvenir shop, at which point my parents were marked and quickly swept upstairs to the VIP room. The guy wanted to close the rope in front of us, but I explained we were together and he had no choice but to let Lyle and I in, even though we were clearly not of the same caliber as my parents. It was a nightmare of sorts, to be surrounded by fragile glass art at every turn. I held my breath and my pack to my stomach and tried as hard as I could not to trip over my own feet.
The salesman brought a piece in front of my mom and said “It’s only €2,000, that’s not bad at all, hahaha!” to which she murmured that it was very nice and slowly walked away. We snuck back downstairs while he wasn’t looking.
The second island was Burano, which is known for its colorfully-painted buildings, lacework and cookies. If you want to paint your building you have to notify the government and they will tell you what colors are acceptable.
My mom and I were more interested in cookies, so we taste-tested two different bakeries, then bought a bag of them from a third. The first and third options tasted similar, while the second lacked flavor. They’re sort of between shortbread and biscotti and have a slight orangey taste to them. Try them if you can!
The last island, Torcello, only has 11 residents. There is a cathedral that Lyle and I didn’t go into because it cost €5 each, so we went to the smaller, free church. My parents did pay the fee (see, they could have afforded that piece of glass!) and reported back that it was very nice.
There’s also an ancient stone chair outside of the cathedral that’s referred to as Attila’s Throne but actually has nothing to do with Attila the Hun, so it’s like why even bother mentioning it.
We headed back to Venice and grabbed a quick lunch of pizza (yum) and headed to our gondola ride.
When my parents sent the info on the ride before they booked it, I noticed it was a ride with four or five boats together, and they sing to you. I told Lyle it looked fine, but I just hope the singer isn’t on my boat. Well, the singer and guitarist were on our boat, but it was easy to avoid awkward eye contact by looking at everything but him. Also, our gondolier was the least cliche-looking gondolier ever, with sunglasses, a New York Yankees cap on and a puffy vest.
All joking aside, the gondola ride was lovely, and I would recommend doing it. A private gondola ride can cost you €80 if you walk up on the street, but ours was much cheaper booked in advance through Viator. Plus the singer was entertaining! And you got a really good feel for the interconnectedness of the canals by actually going through them.
That evening we ate more pasta and enjoyed gelato.
On Day Three we went to Isola di San Michele, an island cemetery where all have been buried since the early 1800s. You’re not allowed to take photos there, which makes sense since it is a cemetery that is still used today. It was huge and serene, and we wandered around for a bit looking for some of the more well-known graves like Igor Stravinsky and Ezra Pound. (Dad looked, we followed.)
After that Lyle and I grabbed some sandwiches to eat while we walked back to the hotel. We said goodbye to my parents, and they headed to their cruise ship while we headed back to the airport. It was such a treat to be able to meet up with them like that, but it was sad to say goodbye because I know we won’t see them again until next year sometime. Waaaah.
Since we knew what to expect this go-round with EasyJet, we kept a close eye on the board so we could run to our gate when we got the number. Venice airport wanted to throw in something unexpected though because the flashing line of text beside the delayed departure time said to go to passport control. Huh? I asked the woman at the lounge (credit card perks for the win!) and she said not to worry about it, but then I went online and started reading horror stories about how long it can take to get through passport control just to get to your gate! So as soon as we had a gate number I made Lyle leave the lounge so we could get through passport control. Which took two seconds. But the line could have been awful! I didn’t know!
We did get our speedy boarding, which didn’t really help because we still had to shove some people’s items to the side to make room for ours. (Excuse me, says the lady, those are fragile. Well maybe don’t put your fragile items in paper bags in the overhead bin!) But all ended well because even with our delayed departure, we still made our train to head back home and even managed to pick up dinner so we wouldn’t starve along the way.
It was a wonderful trip. Venice wasn’t necessarily on the top of my list, but we would definitely go back. It’s a great place to just wander and not worry too much about hitting all the spots. (You’ll notice we didn’t go into the basilica or palace or do any of the other must-sees.)
This has already been a long blog, but I wanted to mention two more things:
- We saw a Saints fan on a gondola as we were illegally loitering on a bridge, and it was super fun to yell Who Dat to him. Shout out to Lyle for noticing his hat first.
- We saw a black and tan dachshund with grey on his muzzle sporting a little onesie and walking jauntily along the cobblestones. Lyle and I pointed him out to each other and we watched him, spellbound. He stopped and held our gaze for a few minutes, and it really felt like Charlie was saying hi. His owner finally coaxed him to start walking again, and as his little butt danced down the street we cried in the street for a few minutes. It was my favorite part of the whole trip.
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