Day 0
Ljubljana blog posted, bags packed, time to go to bed. Eleanor fell asleep first.
Lying awake I decided to Google “Venice” for travel inspiration, facts about the city, travel info etc…what I read was that Venice had experienced bad flooding! I awoke Eleanor with hasty alternative plans until she told me that the Venice hostel was non-refundable! Throwing caution to the wind (with a backup plan in place) we decided to go for it!
Ljublana -> Venice
If I hadn’t googled Venice the night before we would have caught the Flixbus from Ljublana to Venice without a doubt in our mind. What we experienced was very normal. The bus was on time, when we arrived we caught the waterbus to our hostel, we checked in as normal! The only sign from where we were staying that something was wrong was the raised platforms on the pavement, which without googling, I would have thought was for some sort of prior event. We spent the afternoon where our hostel is based with plans on visiting the main city tomorrow giving time for the water to hopefully drain away!
Day 1
Today was forecast to be the dryest day while we are here so we decided to explore and see as much as Venice as possible. With the ticket machine broken at the boat stop (bus boat stop, bus stop?) we spent a good 20 minutes trying to figure out what to do. In the end we jumped on for the one stop across the water to Dorsoduro and nobody checked for a ticket. Since playing Tomb Raider II in the 90s I’ve always wanted to visit Venice and it was exciting to finally walk around the streets, cross bridges and see the glory of Venice (after we’ve given it a chance for the flooding to go away!) Eleanor wanted pasta which was a struggle to find…*sarcasm* so we googled for the quieter cheaper places away from the traditional tourist spots. My navigation failed us both as I took Eleanor on an unguided 40 minute detour until we reached the place that Google originally suggested. I like to think this is my Grandad’s influence of bad directions!
Our most unusual spot of the day is a Spar inside a converted theatre, it certainly puts the Wythall Spar to shame. We ended the day with a trip down the grand canal on the main water bus.
Day 2
In a word – wet! We crossed the water through “low-tide” to get breakfast and spend a day around the city. Getting off the waterbus I immediately noticed a lot of water on the pavement. Going to the supermarket I definitely noticed that my feet and the bottom part of my jeans were completely soaked through! As this was the low-tide part of the day and overhearing stories from other guests at the hostel of how they had to pay 90 euros to get a private water taxi back to the hostel, we decided to head back to Giudecca just in case we couldn’t get back later. We had a relaxed, chilled day where I got to do a fair bit of Woodrush Star work, tried Aperol Spritz, an Italian wine based cocktail and most importantly…used a hairdryer to dry our shoes!
Day 3
Our last day in Venice and this time we made it across the water without getting our feet soaked. If Venice had flooded today I had flip-flops to hand and I was one of the only people in the whole of Venice to wear shorts in November. As we were getting a night bus we had lots of time to explore Venice’s smaller streets, shops and quieter parks.
Tonight we’re off to Strasbourg!
