Venice - Canals and Camping

When looking for accommodation in Venice we soon discovered it is insanely expensive! That is how we ended up staying at a camp site about 15 minutes outside of Venice, which turned out to be really nice! We had beds in our little tent, there was an awesome pool and free sun lounges and as well as a bar and restaurant! It actually turned out to be pretty awesome given how little we were paying to stay there. Below are some pictures of where we stayed. 

Also, Michael enjoying the biggest can of beer we have ever seen - 3 euro from the mini supermarket at the camp site! 

There aren’t too many major attractions in Venice, just the city itself, hence we spent the majority of our time just wandering around and checking everything out. 

When we first arrived we walked along the Grand Canal (below), which was absolutely packed with tourists (never something I enjoy) so we ended up making our way slightly off the beaten track.

Venice is filled with tiny bridges, they are everywhere and make the whole city look so beautiful and picturesque because who doesn’t like a city by the water! 

The canals were filled with small boats and gondolas, we didn’t end up going on one because they cost 80 euro for 45 minutes, which is just ridiculous and I definitely couldn’t justify spending that much! It was fun to watch other people on gondolas and then stripy topped men who work on them try to steer those things – they just their arms and legs to push off the walls of buildings a lot of the time.

The other thing Venice is filled with is shops. There are hundreds of tiny tourist shops and many shops selling glass items from Munro Island (they do glass blowing there). 

There are also thousands of masquerade masks for sale, this is a Venetian tradition and they are worn during the Venic Carnival, some of them looked amazing but some kinda scary!

Ps. Penis pasta hehe

 Wandering the quieter streets and canals of Venice.

Although donuts aren’t exactly traditional Ventian cuisine, these looked amazing so we decided to share one, Michael said it was the best donut he had ever had in his life haha!

For lunch we went in search of a pasta shop Michael had read about online, you place an order and the literally make the pasta from scratch and cook it for you while you wait – I am not a huge pasta fan but it smelt so good that I had to give it a go and it tasted amazing!

We did bite the bullet and wander through the Piazza San Marco - one of the most crowded squares ever! Located here is St Marks Basilica and Dodge's palace, two pretty major tourist attreactions, we had a look but weren't really that keen to visit either.

The next day in Venice was my birthday! I was thrilled because 99% of the time it is raining on my birthday in Australia but I got to wake up to clear sunny skies which was perfect timing. In honor of the beautiful weather I wanted to spend the first half of my day lying by the pool and doing absolutely nothing, Michael even got me a cocktail. It was blissful.

I also got the news that I have been lucky enough to score a teaching gig in London. I will be a permanent CRT at Oasis Academy in Hadley (north of central London) – Academy schools in London do not have the best reputation but seeing as it’s my first teaching job I can’t be too picky and it is good to know that we will have some guaranteed income once we return to London and have to worry about rent and food haha! I will start on the 1^st of September and will be there until Christmas, we will just see what happens after that!

I had decided I wanted to go out to dinner for my birthday so in the afternoon we headed into Venice and I bought my first souvenir of this trip – a fancy glass bottle top. 

We wandered around before heading off to dinner, which turned out to be amazing. We both ended up getting pizza – mine had Brie on it (for those who don’t know; I LOVE brie!).

The dessert was almost better though, Michael got a latte flavoured Semifreddo (which is this strange dessert thing that is kind a cross between mousse and ice cream) and I got a trio of panna cotta – YUM!

We then strolled back through Venice to the bus, it was kinda nice at night, barely any tourists and really serene and quiet! 

Although there is hot a huge list of things to see and do in Venice it was probably the best birthday I have ever had! I was lucky to spend it in a gorgeous country, on a lovely sunny day and with Michael treating me like a queen!