Venice and Verona

"Ooooh...what a pretty canal!" 

"Take a photo of that canal, it's lovely."

"Ah, sitting beside a canal, drinking spritz and eating aperitivo.  I could do this for the rest of my life!"

And now you have an insight into the main gist of our conversation the entire time we were in Venice!  It was one of the few European cities that was on our list that we had yet to cross off.  Knowing the exorbitant prices, we'd booked months and months ago, so had been looking forward to it for absolute yonks.  And it didn't disappoint!

Arriving late on Thursday night we managed to work out how to get on the Number 1 vaporetto down the Grand Canal to our B&B, then got back on (loved that the tickets were time delimited, not per ride) and went all the way down to Piazza San Marco to see it without the crowds and an obligatory first gelato - who cares that it was nearly midnight!

While in Venice we made sure to do lots of the main sights, including the Doge's Palace, St Mark's Basilica, the Campanile, as well as a quick trip out to Murano to see some glass blowing and to check out the lagoon.  The weather was lovely - hot enough to get a tan and wear some shorts, but not too hot that we completely melted after the cold of London!  I loved just wandering around, checking out the food (I'd done a fair bit of research, which meant we ended up eating at some delicious places, such as La Zucca, which was recommended by two different sets of people, and was an absolutely delicious treat for lunch on our last day) and just enjoying feeling the sun on our faces in the most incredible surroundings.  Another really good foodie thing we did was go to the Rialto fish market at midday on the Saturday where one particular restaurant serves up the dish of the day, plus a glass of wine for only 8 euro.  The day we were there it was a plate of lightly fried fish and other seafood - luckily both Adrian and I have come around to fish because otherwise it wouldn't have been so pleasant!

I loved the whole concept of aperitivo hour as well which, despite some early confusion about what exactly 'happy hour' means (drinks become more, rather than less expensive!), became one of our favourite things to do.  The quality and quantity of the nibbles varied dramatically between different places, but Aperol spritz has now firmly lodged itself as one of my favourite drinks.  We also went out on the Friday night we were in Venice, heading to Campo Santa Margharita which seemed to be where most of the action was, then stumbling across a pop up bar on the way home which was lots of fun.

We also added in two nights in Verona, where, luckily, we lucked in to the fact it was the first Sunday of the month, so all the sights which normally would have cost anywhere between 6-10 euros to go into, were only 1 euro!  Excellent.  This included Juliet's House, the arena (while we were there a school choir came in and sang which was really cool - we'll have to go back for an opera one time) as well as some other museums and the like.  We also walked up behind the castle to get a good view out over the city and could actually look down and see a local wedding which was interesting.

And then, of course, it was again all about the food!  Adrian finally had a horse steak, after wanting one for years, and I had a donkey ragu which was surprisingly good.  The gelato was fabulous in Verona, with my favourite flavour being 'pollen' (a bit random!) and the aperitivo was delicious.  We walked all over town, getting to know the main city area inside out.  We stayed with a super friendly Italian guy at his B&B called B&B Casa Nuvola and it was obvious he'd learned his English in Ireland as there were Guinness posters everywhere and he had the funniest Irish/Italian accent.  

All in all, I loved Venice - it was such a beautiful city and I could have happily wandered there for days.  The sights weren't as breathtaking as Rome, but the city was by far and away one of the most magic places I've ever visited.  

Check out the rest of the photos here!