Hello lovelies, today I want to share with you our Venice diaries!

In 2015, my husband took me to Italy as a birthday present. Needless to say it was the best present ever! At the time, I went through a mass decluttering period. So what’s better than a plane ticket birthday gift to illustrate the quote: “Collect moments not things”? The plan was to spend two days in Venice and two days in Milan.

Venice is very touristic, but clichés are clichés for a reason, everybody enjoys them! Venice is certainly a must do in a lifetime, the city has such a History, and you can heavily feel it when you walk around the streets Here is how we experienced Venice. Of course there are other activities to do but according to my travel manifesto here, travel must be a pleasure not a marathon of top 10 things to do.

Activities

The Vaporetto: Vaporetto is a water bus. It’s the perfect way to have a quick overview of the city. We took ours from San Basilio, where we had our hotel, to piazza San Marco. It’s a reasonable walking distance, but we wanted to try the Vaporetto.

Piazza Piazza San Marco

We started there. I warn you there are a lot of tourists and guys harassing you to buy roses, selfie sticks or hats. But it’s totally worth it, the square is beautiful. Piazza San Marco is a focal point in Venise, that’s the place you use for orientation and it feels like every Venetian street leads to it.  We skipped the basilica though, the queue was too long, and we were convinced that there was surely other beautiful basilicas to see in Venice. You will also notice a lot of coffee places with attractive settings, but they are really overpriced #touristtrap

 

Venice streets We spent hours lost in the beautiful streets, Venice is literally a living Museum with no less than 400 bridges and 15 centuries old buildings. From cute artisan shops to Italian trattorias and a breathtaking architecture; Venice is a true historical gem. Getting lost is the activity that I like the most in Europe! It was tricky though, as there was a lot of dead ends haha! But who cares when you stroll romantically holding hands in such a magical city?

Museums

If you are interested in History, art and culture, Venice is the place to be! With a wide choices of museums, we randomly picked la Scuola Grande Di San Rocco, less crowded than the others. It used to be a confraternity founded in century 13th (thank you Wikipédia, I would’ve never remembered that!).

The “Gallerie dell’Accademia” inside, was magical. With a collection of Venetian paintings, from Renaissance to Gothic style. A collection of all you can imagine as European antique art. The architecture was impressive, I am always amazed of how civilisations built such complex and beautiful buildings, without today’s technology.

At the meantime, it took ages to build each and every basilica we can see in Europe, but leaders were obsessed with posterity back then, leaving something to be remembered by. We don’t take time anymore to build monuments for History! Buildings nowadays just need to be practical and built as fast as possible. I guess we traded posterity for profitability 🙂

 

Food

Eat as much as you can of local food, wherever you go in Italy. I still can’t understand how a simple pasta with cheese can be that delicious!! It’s so worth the calories.

 

Gondola ride It was really romantic! (and expensive). The gondolier was very nice, he told us about the History of each building we passed, and sang us Italian traditional songs. Insider tip: When you are traveling in couple, always mention that you are newly wed, it usually gets you some extras :p

Venetian masks: This is the most typical souvenir you can bring from Venice. The real hand made masks are expensive, but the shops are magical and you can feel the passion of the artisans for their work. We bought ours from a simple souvenir shop. For souvenir shopping, avoid the places near piazza San Marco for better deals.

Places to eat

Rossopomodoro: Italian pasta, pizza and wine with fresh ingredients. The decor was great and modern. It felt like a high end restaurant, but with an affordable price. We had a nice romantic dinner.

Antico forno: to grab a real street Italian pizza and eat by the canal, perfect for lunch break!

Boutique del Gelato:  a classical Italian gelateria! I had this amazing Straciatella flavour cone!

 

Transport

Vaporetto

Especially if you want to do the Murano trip.

Walk!

Seriously it’s a very small city! Perfect to burn the pizza and pasta calories you accumulate during the trip.

Regrets

Murano

We should have done the one day trip to Murano. We were actually afraid to miss our train to Milan (a good enough reason to go back). Honestly, I still dream of the colorful houses we saw in brochures 🙁

The gondola

… prices!!! I didn’t even want to do it but my husband insisted, he said it was one of those things we should do once in a lifetime. I try to see it as a contribution to maintain culture and tradition in Venice… I believe there are no other economical activities there apart from tourism.

Pick pockets

Like all the popular touristic places, watch your pockets!

More pictures below.

Love,

Dalal.

 

 

 

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