Day 7: Venezia

Benvenuti all'Italia!! After leaving the resort in Ljubljana, it only took an hour for us to cross over the Italian border, passing through Trieste and Udine on the motorway.

Where we were going more was a lot more famous - Venice!

I had been twice before, once with Guides (like Krakow) and the other with my family on a holiday to practise my Italian (it was while I was a Bangor to be fair). So in short, I had seen most of the sights already such as Piazza di San Marco and the Basilica... Thank God that was the case because I don't remember a lot...

Well, writing this is going to be interesting.

We arrived in the mainland port to get the boat to Venice itself around lunchtime, landing just a short walk from Piazza San Marco. After showing us the meeting point for later, Darius lead a few of us to a restaurant for lunch that he recommended.
Going with him felt the safest option, as my data was still out and it is inevitable to get lost in Venice, squeezing through the tight streets packed with tourists.

Venice is known for its seafood, so along with a glass of white, I went for gnocci with scallops and courgettes - and it was delicious!! 😋 The rest of my table was very jealous. The other thing Venice is known for is prosecco (later) and Aperol Spritz - I am sadly no more a fan of that than I was beforehand. But at least I tried again before firmly saying I do not like the burnt orange liquor.

After food is truly where the fun starts. We went to a café afterwards, when Benji asked if I wanted to share a bottle of red with him... Note: if I'm drinking gin or rum, I can go almost all night long. But get me on 2 glasses of wine, and I am a complete lightweight!! Like I said, this is going to be interesting. 🙈
Once all that was gone, we met back up at the meeting point for our add-on - a gondola ride. Because of how expensive they normally are, the gondolas are the main sight that I HADN'T done before, and either stuck to walking or the water-bus instead.

Going on a gondola is a completely different experience to the water bus - you have a bit of fresh air in your face and you feel completely luxurious. Just like Budapest, the best way to see Venice is definitely from the water.

It was also starting to sober me up... Until Mikaela and Naomi bought out a bottle of prosecco and some plastic cups.... Cannot refuse that can I? Even more interesting. I had to get a coca cola afterwards to help sober me up before our walking tour.

Free wine and nibbles on the 

walking tour/pub crawl

This walking tour had a bit of a difference.... It was half walking tour like we had before and half Venetian pub crawl. Who knew those existed - learning that some buildings in Venice are crooked and that the city is in fact built on wooden planks that have become petrified over the hundreds of years the city has been around; all the while having taster glasses of local wines (plus prosecco) and eating yummy local appetisers - from salami en croute (being fancy here), arancini and crispy calamari 😋

Oh, and we had a visitor as well - a VERY cute little dog who was a friend of our tour guide came over to our group to say hello. She stopped traffic for a little bit that's for sure.

Speaking of our tour guide - I've forgotten her name, but I must mention her as she was so patient with me and my VERY rusty Italian, especially up until then I have had a few people so far who haven't even let me try…
Oh and one more thing that she told us which is a Venetian tradition. Once you get a new drink, you have to bang your glass on the table and say Salute (cheers) before you take a sip - otherwise you won't have sex for the rest of your life... 🙊

After meeting back up with the other groups (we had separated into 3 groups for the walking tour), there was enough time for one last drink (a raspberry mojito, no more wine for me!) before getting back on the boat for the coach to our hostel. It was another a&o hostel, but this time it was much nicer and more organised than the one in Vienna. I had an early night seeing as it had been such a busy (and rather drunken) day - better to rest now and go all out the next night 😉

Next up is my final full day - and we're off to Italy's capital, Rome!!