Veneto Region, Italy – Day 5 – Venice

I’ve always wanted to come back to Venice after a flying through visit 28 years ago while Interrailing. There was no cheap accommodation to be found, so my traveling partner and I ended up staying 2 hours outside Venice. This meant we visited for a day before our overnight train to Munich. I really don’t remember much about the visit, other than was had really good ice cream.

This time we also arrived by train from Padua, where we had to change. We had heard from other people who had visited about how difficult it was to park and then you still had to be transported to Venice itself.

We left our accommodation before breakfast, much to the consternation of the owners, with offers of coffee and croissants to take away burning in our ears. We parked easily on the underground car park directly in front of Verona Porto Nuova station and set off to buy our tickets. Traveling business class was only 5€ more per person with a guaranteed seat, so we bought our tickets and headed for the platform. When the train arrived we were pleasantly surprised to find the seats in groups of four round tables with their own Perspex barriers separating each table. The tables folded out towards us, the window blinds and leather seats were electrically operated and each seat had its own plug socket. To top it all off, between Vicenza and Padua the steward came through to give us a complimentary bottle of water and a pastry snack each. He also offered us coffee or orange juice but we were about to change trains.

We changed trains in Padua and 15 minutes later Venice came into view.

The station was very busy but the first view of Venice was great.

We decided to take a vaporetto to St Mark’s Square. The best views are supposed to be from the canals and this way we would see most of the Grand Canal and its sights. The vaporetto was crowded but eventually we all got seats.

We passed under the famous Rialto Bridge and then under the wooden Academia Bridge.

I had to laugh when I saw a DHL courier boat go by followed by a yellow post boat. I hadn’t thought about how things actually get delivered when there are so many canals.

We left the vaporetto at St Mark’s and followed the flow of people into the square.

After walking through a maze of streets to find the nearest toilets we decided to keep walking down the narrow streets and across the smaller canals. The idea had been to try to get lost and see some real back streets but we kept ending up back on the Grand Canal.

I wanted to visit Murano to see the glass shops, so at Arsenal we got on another vaporetto and head off to the smaller group of islands that make up Murano. The glass manufacturers were originally moved from Venice itself due to the risk of fire 🔥.

On our way to Murano we passed the main hospital and parked outside A&E were ambulance boats! We also saw one traveling quickly with its blue light flashing. As we had already seen police boats, this lead to Bethany asking if the fire brigade was also in boats. I can only assume so as there would be nowhere to drive a fire engine 🚒.

After stopping at the cemetery we arrived on Murano.

We had a look in a couple of the glass shops and marveled at the beautiful products.

This was a glass installation in one of the squares.

I preferred Murano to Venice as the canals were wider and there were fewer people. It was also a little cooler as it was completely surrounded by water.

On the way back to Venice we saw a petrol station!

Then we went passed the cemetery again and eventually ended up back on the Grand Canal.

Friends of ours had been in Venice recently and had mentioned the Magnum Pleasure Store. With two ice cream lovers in tow we had to visit. Luckily it was across the canal from the train station and not very busy.