I arrived in Venice from Milan via another €12 Flix Bus, leaving from the Milan Lampugnano Bus Station at 10:35 and arriving at Venice Mestre Train Station at 13:50. Venice Mestre is situated on the mainland, so I caught a train to Venice Santa Lucia on the main island, costing €1.25. I had booked into the cheapest hostel I could find, Apartment Garden Venice, which had 7 beds squeezed into a 4 bed dorm. It was €20 a night, including city tax and cleaning tax (whatever that is?!), which for Venice is not too bad at all. The location was very good, just don’t expect too much.
I had 3 nights in Venice, 2 full days so I spent my first full day getting lost. The weather wasn’t fantastic but that didn’t really matter as it is such a beautiful place. The main places to see are: The Rialto Bridge, Bridge of Sighs, St Mark’s Basilica, Doge’s Palace, The Santa Maria della Salute and the Scuola Grande San Marco. This easily takes up a whole day, especially when you get lost down all the different alleys, but you will eventually stumble across all these places. The best part about Venice was getting lost and discovering the quiet little alleys, and beautiful bridges, with no one around. There are plenty of bars and restaurants lining the canals but there’s something about eating a pizza and having a glass of red wine overlooking the water on your own that doesn’t isn’t quite as fun as doing it with someone else. I did find a great little restaurant called Gino’s that had a margherita pizza and a glass of red for €7.90. It’s situated a 5 minute walk after taking a left out the train station, on the main strip.
On my second full day I decided to splash out €20 and buy a 24 hour boat taxi ticket. A one journey ticket cost €7.50, so as long as you jump on 3 boats then it’s worth paying the money. I was skeptical about purchasing the ticket as it seemed like a lot of money, but it was definitely worth it. You can’t go to Venice without zig-zagging from side to side down the canals on a boat. I decided to head over to the island of Murano, famous for it’s glass, and spent a while looking at all the different fascinating glass shops. I then continued over to another island called Lido and spent a bit of time walking the calm street and enjoying a coffee, in one of the many coffee shops.
I was then going to head back to the main island, but at the last minute changed my mind and jumped on a boat to Punta Sabbioni, which I thought was another island, but it turned out to be miles away and actually back on the main land of Italy. I went for a walk to an old castle and ended up walking for 2 hours through some beautiful idyllic farmlands and eventually stumbling across the biggest beach I have ever seem in my life, with not a single person on it. I walked along the beach for a bit and ended up getting stuck inside as a fence ran along the whole length of the beach and big padlocked gates stopped anyone getting in or out. After walking for 20 minutes I had to turn around and leave the same way I got in, which turns out was a building site I wasn’t meant to enter. I eventually made my way back to the port to catch a ferry back to the mainland, for my last dinner in Italy.
I am now on my way to the Netherlands, to stay with some friends for a while that I met in Vietnam, after a fantastic 2 weeks in Italy. I am flying out of Marco Polo Airport which is a 30 minute bus ride from the Piazzale Roma Bus Station, which is located next to the Santa Lucia Train Station on the main island. Bus number 5 heads to the airport every 30 minutes costing €8. I really did have a great time in this beautiful country and I will definitely be back someday!!