Travel // 48 hours in Venice

 

Jacket- PrettyLittleThing

My wonderful angel of a mother got myself and Lewis a trip to Venice as our Christmas present and we couldn't have been more excited. We had been looking at pictures of it on instagram for months before the day finally came.  After a 4 hour delay due to bad weather which left us having no other choice but to have some unplanned bevs we were well and truly ready to get to Venice. We finally landed at Marco Polo airport at 10pm Italian time, but we left Lewis’ laptop on the plane and had to wait for it to be brought to the service desk. Typical us, this sort of thing happens us quite often but it's all good craic. 

We made it to the bus and got our first glimpses of Venice via the bus widow. I had been to Venice once before when I was 11 but, Lewis had never been and I was scared that it wouldn’t live up to his expectations as I've been talking about how unreal it is since we met. I was wrong, he absolutely fell in love with it, as any normal human would. It's honestly like a different world so when we got off the bus at around midnight we decided to walk rather than get a waterbus or taxi. This meant we could see the outskirts of Venice at night and it was like we were the only people in the world for a while. 

We made it to our hotel which was the Hotel Rio, a minutes walk from St Marks square, dropped our bags and went on the search for somewhere that was still open that could feed us. We found somewhere, had toasted sandwiches and wine and talked about how mad it is that we are actually in Venice after being at home in Edinburgh just a few hours beforehand. We got back to the hotel and swore to have an early night so we could make the most of our one full day in Venice. As promised we woke up at around 8am and started wondering the streets, it was freezing cold as you can imagine but that didn't deter us from wanting to make the most of the trip. At 9.30 St Marks cathedral opened and we very excitedly took off our hats and put our phones away to be allowed inside the beautiful Basilica. It was absolutely unreal and is a must see if you're going to be in Venice, the detail and artwork is like nothing we had ever seen before and it really took us back.

I was raised Catholic so Lewis was asking me what's this and what's that, I was answering very confidently as if I were next in line to be the pope but really I didn't know as much as I was letting on. We did see a priest in the confessional box which was something we'll never forget! After St Marks cathedral we found somewhere to have pizza, which ended up being our breakfast as it was still way before noon at this point and then headed back to the hotel as we couldn't hack it and had to have a nap. 

An hour or so after we were recharged and ready to go and decided that we would make our way to Burano. Ever since i found out we were going to Venice I had my heart set on visiting Burano, a gorgeous Picturesque Burano is known for its brightly coloured fishermen's houses and its casual eateries serving seafood from the lagoon. It is a 45 minute water bus away from Venice, to get to the stop you have to walk for around 25 minutes but if you have google maps you'll be grand and it's a great way to properly see the city.  A return ticket costs €15 and we spent the day there having coffees (and gins) and taking some beautiful images. It's like nowhere I've ever been and I wish everyone painted their houses in such gorgeous colours.

We headed back at around 6pm and by then it was pretty dark already so we found a supermarket, got some crisps and drink and spent some time chilling in the hotel and by chilling I mean getting half cut and singing old paramore/blink 182 songs, the best kind of nights. We made it out for dinner quite late but found somewhere nice, Lewis had spaghetti and I had grilled chicken and roast potatoes, we each had a drink and the bill came to €60 which is quite usual for Venice and we really enjoyed the food, We also got a complimentary Aperol Spritz!

The next day we woke up to snow falling which was amazing to see in Venice and started to make our way home, we got the waterbus to the bus station and the journey on the waterbus gave us amazing views of the city and it's buildings, the architecture is something else we were both in awe. We made it back to Edinburgh just before the whole of the UK basically shut down due to the snow and subsequently spent the next few days under the covers watching breaking bad and not venturing past the front door. Ideal!