When in Venice

I usually pride myself on being the most organised person on the planet. However, lately it feels more like I'm the most unorganised. I'm putting it down to the fact that I now have to be super organised at work (whereas I never really used to have to be) so now I have no organisation left for my personal life. You may have noticed that you're now only getting like 1 blog post a week (if you're lucky) because I just can't seem to get myself together to get posts out. The same applied with my first holiday of 2017. I'm usually super on it; planning outfits and researching restaurants and getting everything ready. However, when I flew to Venice on Wednesday, I packed my case about 10pm the night before and then went out to get my euros in the morning. Atleast I'd been organised enough to check us in on our flights and to actually book it in the first place! We got a super cheap deal too - £300 for the both of us for flights, hotel, bed and breakfast (plus free wifi) for 4 nights/5 days! I booked it through Teletext holidays and felt super retro doing so; I had to actually ring up and say I wanted to book a holiday instead of being able to book online! We stayed in a hotel called the Hotel La Meridiana in a town called Mogliano Veneto which is in between Venice and the airport. I went for the hotel more because of how ridiculously cheap it was than anything else and I had worried that it wouldn't be too nice and would be in the middle of nowhere but we found the opposite! Mogliano Veneto is a really nice little town with a shopping mall, restaurants and cute little cafes and our hotel was really nice and was literally a 5 minute walk from the train station and then it was a 20 minute journey in to Venice so it was ideal!

However, me and my mum constantly battle for the crown of who's geography is worse (ironic considering she does mapping for a living) so of course we got a bit lost. So by the time we'd got to our hotel and unpacked, we decided to go for dinner locally instead of going in to Venice. And it was so nice! We found this cute little pizzeria that sold metre long pizzas! Even though I left packing until the last minute, I'm actually an amazing packer. I always manage to pack exactly what I need and never have to repack it for being overweight. So from my selection of carefully put together outfits, on my first night I went with this cute little boohoo shift dress (that I've had a couple of years now but I still love it) and brown and gold sandals.

Venice was every bit as pretty as I'd hoped it would be and it felt like stepping back in time. There are no roads (so no cars) so they do everything by boat instead - including bin lorry boat, builders skip boat and amazon delivery boat (which was quite funny when one of the packages fell off as they went under a bridge). Venice is split in to various districts and so we started off by exploring Dorsoduro and San Polo in the sunshine. Because it was so hot, I went with denim shorts, dusky pink 90s neckline crop top and floral print kimono (all new look) with my favourite Quay Australia sunglasses to complete the look.

Venice is one of those cities of endless possibilities; a place that makes you constantly feel like you're on your greatest adventure. We started the day by wandering in to a Venetian mask designers shop and he was like enamored by me and got me to try on all his masks and take some arty photos. I have to say a massive thank you to my mother dearest for being my personal photographer for the whole time we were away but even she could learn a thing or two from this guy. I particularly love the mirror shots he took. The downside to it though was that I then spent the rest of the day with my face covered in glitter. Then we stopped for a super cute lunch before going in to the Santa Maria church, where we were branded like Hester Prynne in The Scarlett Letter with red cover ups because we had too much skin on show. It was such a beautiful building though and I can see why Roman Catholics would love to visit Venice - although I'm not a believer in God, it did feel like a very spiritual city. Then after a seriously amazing gelato cone, we wandered in to an art exhibition at the university by some Russian guy who had created big oil painting pieces on ripped up cardboard. I'm always wary when I go anywhere art related because I'm not a fan of a lot of it but I actually really liked this guys stuff.

Then we went to the one part of the day that we'd actually planned in advance - a wine tasting session at a cute little Osteria (as they call them in Italy). For starters, I'm pretty proud of us for finding the place! Then we got served 3 whites and 1 red (it was meant to be 2 of each but my mum asked for them to swap 1 because neither of us drink red wine) plus some little bruschetta. Some of the food was a little strange but the wine was so nice! When I turned 18, I decided I wanted to be a wine drinker and so I taught myself to like it (and then love it). So maybe as I go in to 21, I'll teach myself to like red wine. Because I've liked it when I've had it at wine tastings but only after a few glasses of white - I feel like I have to build myself up to red. But anyway, the evening was super cute and it was nice knowing that I was drinking wine in Italy instead of being at work. I wore this short-at-the-front-long-at-the-back striped skirt (primark) and black strappy top (missguided) with the same sandals that were already killing my feet (I though flats were meant to be comfortable?)

Our next day was much more touristy! After getting ready in black top (new look) and red elephant print skater skirt (missguided), we headed in to Venice - first stop: gondola ride! Even though it was ridiculously expensive (80 euros for 30 minutes!!), I didn't feel like I could go to Venice and not do it. It was amazing and you really do get a different feel for the place when you see it from the water. And our amazing weather was still blessing us so that made it even better! Then we walked down to the San Marco district which is where most people go when they visit. St. Mark's square, Saint Mark's basilica, the Doge's palace and the rialto bridge are all top places of interest and rightfully so. They were beautiful and the architecture was incredible - we also got the lift up this really tall tower (thank god it wasn't stairs) and you could see the whole of Venice from up there. But as beautiful as it was, the hoards of people, super expensive food & drink and general hustle and bustle kept it in a firm second place to the areas we'd walked through the day before. I did love posing on the bridge of sighs though, where women used to sigh (self explanatory really) and swoon over Casanova as he left the church. That is, before he gave up the church to become an adventurer, author and womanizer, so much so that his name is now used to describe those of them in the modern day.

Then after a quick change back at the hotel, we headed back in to Venice for dinner on the Grande Canal. I felt like a real-life Belle in this beautiful golden outfit (especially when I got given a red rose by some random guy - that really completed the look). This river island jumpsuit is super flattering and even better, it shows off my tattoo perfectly. I also opted for a jumpsuit rather than something shorter because each evening, I was getting eaten alive by mosquitoes (that was one down side of being in heat near loads of water).

The next day was our one rainy day so stayed in Mogliano Veneto in the morning and went round the shops (they had a Sephora!) and ate cake for breakfast in a cute little patisserie. Oh and if you're wondering how to make Italian hot chocolate, it's basically just melt a bar of chocolate and put it in a mug. Then after regretting my outfit choice (it was actually kind of chilly), I changed in to this new look jumpsuit and we headed in to Venice to have a little look around the Cannaregio district, which is much quieter and home to the old Jewish quarter. Then after a lunch containing enough melted cheese to last a life time, we headed back because the rain was really coming down heavy and we only had one umbrella between the two of us.

Despite the rainy day, we'd already had enough sun to make my freckles come out! (and my mums, much to her dismay because she doesn't like hers). Luckily, the rain had cleared in the evening so we enjoyed another amazing meal on the Grande Canal as we watched the sun set. I wore this gorgeous missguided playsuit with lace up chunky heeled sandals and black jacket and then finished the look with red lipstick.

Before we left England, I made my mum pack a swimsuit because I thought it was an alien idea to go on holiday without one. And then once we were there, I really wanted to go swimming but we couldn't find any swimming pools that were open on the weekend. But then we stumbled across a place called 'the lido' in mums guidebook, which is one of the smaller islands that surround Venice and it takes about 30 minutes on one of their public boat-buses to get there. So we headed there for our last day (after checking out of our hotel and stashing our cases at the train station) and were so happy with what we found. It encompasses the phrase 'hidden gem'; of all the people who I know have been to Venice, none of them know that there's a beach. Lido is a proper little seaside town with rows of shops and restaurants and little stalls.  Then it stretches out in to golden sands and rows and rows of sun loungers and umbrellas. It was like we'd traveled to somewhere completely different! So we spent about 4 hours on the beach, reading, relaxing and getting tanned (and eventually burnt too) before we headed back to Venice for a late lunch/early dinner. I did have some pretty funny tan lines by the end of the day too, thanks to this swimsuit (it's from boohoo and I love it so much).

We'd loved the restaurant from the night before so much that we went back there for our last proper Italian meal before collecting our luggage and heading to the airport. For our last day, I did a take #2 on my outfit from the day before; black denim shorts and striped crop top with cute floral detailing along the bottom.

Then after the weirdest airport experience ever (honestly, I know I've mentioned me being disorganized but that place was on a whole other level - it was like they've never done any flights before), we landed back in England with enough time for me to get 4 hours sleep before getting up for work and going back to reality (for a rest - we walked 27.5 miles while we were away!). I loved my first time in Italy and it was so nice to spend some quality mother-daughter time with my momma dearest. Now it's time to go on a serious pizza and pasta detox unless I want to be rolling my way to my next holiday!