Venice: Like A Virgin

Venice good gives face.

One of the old-world cities that defines the way that we perceive Europe, Venice seems to embody all of the iconic elements of an Italian vacation.

For my boyfriend Liviu's birthday this year, I decided that Venice would be our destination for a romantic mini-break weekend. Neither of us had been there before, and it was one of the places that always seemed to figure near the top of the list of cities he'd like to visit.

True to form, I'd left everything a bit late to book. But I found a flights-and-hotel package on one of the main travel websites – it was expensive, but I wanted it to be a special occasion so I bit the bullet. Flights from London Luton to Venice Marco Polo, with two nights at Palazzetto Madonna.

A few days before our departure, I did a bit of quick research into how best to get from Marco Polo airport to our hotel. Ultimately I spoke with the hotel and they booked a private water taxi transfer for us.

Our flights were with EasyJet. The weekend that we were travelling was the bank holiday weekend when British Airways had a major meltdown. We were oblivious to our minor delays and normal budget-flight irritations, just relieved that our travel plans hadn't been thrown into total chaos.

I was a bit apprehensive that our hotel transfer somehow wouldn't work as planned, but as we emerged from the airport terminal onto the adjacent water taxi dock, a water taxi was approaching the pick-up point calling out my name. We stepped aboard and were soon whizzing across the water towards the old city of Venice.

As our water taxi entered the Grand Canal, we undeniably felt like rock stars. The weather was spectacular – warm sun, clear blue skies, and we standing at the back of the water taxi soaking up the incredible sights of the city as our taxi driver expertly navigated his way through the gondolas and ferry's that were criss-crossing the canal.

Soon after gliding beneath the iconic Rialto Bridge, our driver turned off into a small canal and we had arrived. Stepping off the boat and straight into our hotel.

Admiring the view and escaping the crowds

May is pretty much peak season for visiting Venice – everywhere is busy, the streets are full of people, romantic couples contrasting sharply with the hassled looking families lugging baby strollers up steps and over bridges while trying to stop their children plunging into a canal. There were plenty of gays in Venice, we held hands as we walked, kissed occasionally – we felt pretty relaxed. On the Saturday night there seemed to be a lot of stag and hen parties in town.

We managed to escape the crowds for a little while by getting away from street level. Department store Fondaco Dei Tedeschi has a roof-top terrace where you can get a view over the Rialto bridge and across the city. It's free and spectacular. The shopping in this department store is exciting high-end labels, so it's worth doing a bit of browsing as you make your way through the store to the roof-top.

Eating and Drinking

Before the trip, I asked some of my well-travelled friends for recommendations. I was equipped with extensive lists of bars, restaurants, and places for gelato. But it turned out that I was over-thinking it a little.

On our first night I picked out one of the recommendations that looked interesting, worked out where it was in relation to where we were, and then Google-mapped our way there. It was a lot of walking, wrong-turns, and even asking for directions (always an absolute last resort for me). Eventually we found the restaurant that we were looking for, only to be told that they were too full to offer us a table. It was a little disappointing.

After that, we decided to just be a bit spontaneous – drinking in bars that looked cool, enjoying simple food in restaurants that looked interesting, and trying as many different gelato places as possible.

The food of Venice is a bit different to other parts of Italy. Polenta is a key staple, obviously there’s a lot of seafood eaten, and the use of rich squid or cuttlefish ink is common. What you’ll also see a lot of is chicchetti – essentially the Venetian version of tapas, small snacks designed to be shared over drinks.

Fritto Misto is one of our favourite things to eat, and we found a little take-away place not far from our hotel where we could pick up a cone of freshly fried prawns and calamari to keep us fuelled-up while we were exploring.

Spritz is the preferred local apertif – generally made with Aperol, but alternatively with Campari, topped up with either prosecco or white wine with soda water. The perfect afternoon drink on a hot day.

One of the best spots that we stumbled across was a bar called Naranzaria – just at the foot of the Rialto bridge (on the markets side), here you could sit in the sun with your feet dangling in the waters of the Grand Canal, watching the world gliding past while sipping a spritz (which at €2.50 was a great price for a priceless experience).

Escaping reality

Venice is a fantastic, almost surreal place to visit – it's such a world apart from most other cities. If you were being hyper-critical, you could say that it feels a little artificial – almost as if it's no longer a place where people live and go about their day-to-day business, it's a destination, almost like an old-world theme park where people from around the world come to admire the beauty, ride in gondolas, and eat gelato. I'm okay with that.

Is a gondola ride worth the money?

If you're in Venice you have to go on a gondola – it's just what you do. Finding a gondola is easy – they're available almost at every point along any canal that you're wandering along. Obviously a gondola ride is not cheap – the prices seemed to be fixed across the city, with a 30 minute ride costing €80. I enjoyed it. It was fun. I'm glad we did it. However I don't think I ever need to do it again. Using the water taxis is a more efficient way to explore the network of canals.

Accommodation

We stayed at Palazzetto Madonna.

This was a good hotel – not over-the-top luxurious, but modern and comfortable.

Service throughout the hotel was friendly and efficient, everyone spoke English which made it easier for us.

I'm not sure if it's necessarily in the cool part of town, but for us the location worked really well. We walked everywhere. Maybe next time I'd use the water taxis a bit more to get from place to place, and with its canal-side position, the Palazzetto Madonna is well-placed for that.

Good breakfast also, we started each day sitting outside in the hotel's courtyard, planning our day while fuelling up on coffee, pastries, eggs, ham, and anything else that was on offer.

Airport Transfers

We booked our airport transfers through our hotel – they organised it for us through one of the local water taxi companies. We paid €130 to get from the airport to the hotel, and €120 to get from the hotel to the airport. We price-checked this against the local water taxi companies to see if it would have been much cheaper if we'd booked it ourselves, but the difference wasn't material, so the hotel wasn't taking much of a mark-up. The concierge that we had booked the transfer through seemed a little surprised that it had all gone so smoothly, apparently the water taxi drivers can get a bit impatient and don't like to be kept waiting.

The private boat transfer was perfect for us, but obviously expensive and a bit of a luxury. There is a shared water taxi that operates between the airport and the old town – I think it was about €15 each way (per person). You can buy tickets for this on your arrival at the airport, and it seems to run pretty regularly. If you know how to find your hotel once you get to Venice, then this would be a sensible option and it's probably what we'd use for our next visit.