A day spent exploring St. Mark’s square, cruising the canals of Venice and eating seafood in Burano. A hot day fuelled by Aperol Spritz and gelato, the ideal diet for my Italian leg of the journey.

Woke up, the nightclub/hostel duo was not favourable for getting rest, duly noted. This morning, rumours spread at breakfast that somebody from another room was held up at the end our street. Somehow, vibrating floors and pounding music was the least of our worries.

Venice

On the train to Venice today, at first, I was confused how you travel by train to a city that’s full of canals and on the water? Turns out there’s a boat ride after the train ride, obviously. Arrive Venice and my goodness, it was hot. We walked to St. Mark’s square, looked around at Doges palace, Bridge of Sighs and visited the spiral staircase.

Spent an hour wandering the streets, walked over the Rialto bridge and took pictures of the gondolas in the canal. Google maps is very unreliable around here, (plus the streets look identical) so I felt I was certainly going to get lost.

Did some googling for food/wine hotspots, and grabbed a gelato from Sosa. I was in search of a sports bar or Irish pub showing the England v Spain women’s soccer game. I gladly had a couple Aperol ‘pitstops’ on the walk there. Leaving breadcrumbs, I thought it was a great idea to retrace my steps to our meeting point via spritz-stops.

Left to get some lunch, got takeaway Bolognese pasta from Dal Moros, apparently, they are hugely popular on TikTok. The line was long, and of course it was takeaway, there are NO places to stop in Venice. They’ll fine you 200 Euro for sitting on stairs, bridges and doorstops, but there’s not a single bench or picnic table to eat at. The lack of infrastructure was infuriating, I couldn’t even find a garbage can. No wonder the canals end up full of crap, there’s no place to sit or get rid of your trash! I continued exploring and went for a walk, we had a gondola ride booked.

In the blazing sun, I delicately hopped into a gondola with a few others from my group. The searing hot leather seats and black painted sides made it mighty difficult to sit back and relax. Our gondolier Matteo was a polite young man, dressed like a scene from the movies. His pink plastic vape and cloud of strawberry smoke really added to our experience.

It was lovely going through the canals and under the bridges, but the sun was super, super hot. To top it off, the batteries from my little electric pocket fan had failed, time to swelter. Matteo’s skills were impressive, we had no problem through the narrow canals, avoiding a single bump or scrape against the buildings or other gondolas. After a shaky disembarkation, we were keen to seek some shade and returned to St. Mark’s square. Killing time while waiting at our meeting point for the water taxi. I walked to grab more gelati and another Aperol, rewarding myself for the afternoon.

Burano Island

Next stop Burano Island, I’m looking forward to some seafood for dinner! Jumped on the water taxi and off we went, the boat was unbearably hot with no airflow, even our fans couldn’t save us. It was absolute torture, like a sauna, 45 people crammed in for close to an hour, on a 35 degree day. Because it was so hot, I wouldn’t go in one of those boats again, we very strongly considered taking the boat by force or throwing ourselves overboard. Finally off the boat, we walked down the pretty streets to have a look and kill some time before our dinner reservation. The little coloured houses and their boats made for some great photos, and mercifully the sun was easing up as well, was nice to wander around, but I was keen to eat and get home. It had been a massive day of booze and sun, and a long, hot journey in the water-sauna ensured we were all pissed in more ways than one.

I sat down for dinner, feeling awfully drained and tired, and attempted a glass of warm white wine – nup. While waiting for my food, I couldn’t help but notice that the restaurant was decorated like a high school theatre production. Fake fish, buoys and nets hanging from the roof, it was very strange. A small room full of 100 people quickly felt nauseating, as the smell of fish mixed with heat stroke made for some interesting moods. Unfortunately, the food was really underwhelming, I would have killed for something fresh. We had a set menu including seafood risotto and seafood lasagne, shamefully utilizing every way to ruin a delicate piece of fish – I was fuming.

Once we had finished dinner, it was back on the water taxi for another hot hour of hell. I caught the train back to our stop and made it to the hostel. Avoided being stabbed, (at this point I would have welcomed it) and went straight to bed.

I don’t think I’ll come to Venice again.

BuraNO, Hilary