In Venice with my valentine

When looking to fill our monthly holiday quota, me and Ollie originally considered going away in February for Valentine's day. But then we thought, why kill two birds with stone when you can celebrate two separate things (at least, that's what I thought)? So instead, we had Valentine's day at home, and then jetted off to Venice for belated celebrations the weekend after!

I've never been one for Valentines day; believing it to be mostly an excuse for retailers to up their prices on flowers and cards. I wasn't against it per se, but being single, I felt generally neutral about it. But since being in a couple, I thought it would be nice to mark our first Valentines's day together by going on date night. Again, I mostly think restaurants are overpriced on Valentine's day and we'll probably stay in and do something cute for future ones, but I was excited to spend our first one on date night! And Ollie did very well, surprising me with a delivery of flowers, prosecco and chocolates to work (he got my flower taste spot on, knowing I'm more of a pink-petals girl than a red-roses one)! Then we went for a lovely meal at Juni. We were expecting tapas (given that it's a tapas restaurant) but the 4 course set menu that we ended up with was equally as amazing. Valentine's day is all about pink and red so I wore a pearl embellished burgundy dress, gold shoes, burgundy and gold bag, and the pink and red Valentine's manicure to boot.

I've mentioned it many times so religious blog readers, cover your ears now. But our flights to Venice were beautifully dirt cheap! It was £45 return (amazing) but the outbound flights were at like 6pm (not so amazing). I mean, on the plus side, we didn't have to get up early and had plenty of time to pack on the day we flew, but arriving at night was a little strange. Venice's airport is about an hour away from the city so by the time we checked into our air bnb, it was like 10 o'clock at night. We'd booked the loveliest apartment (which cost around £100 a night) and was in a great location, right on the main canal on the intersection of the Dorsoduro and San Polo districts. We also had a lovely host who had left us a complimentary bottle of prosecco, which we drank before going out and having a drink in a nearby bar, and then finishing the night with pizza and calzones (noone does end-of-the-night food quite like the Italians).

Waking up in one of my favourite cities on Sunday morning was immediately a great start to the day, and I had a busy busy day of exploring lined up! But first, a proper introduction to Italy for Ollie. Coffees, Aperol Spritz', pizza and pasta! The sun even showed up to say hello which was lovely. I mean it was fairly chilly, but slightly warmer than home and definitely a lot more beautiful.

My favourite thing to do in Venice is nothing. Literally, Venice is one of the prettiest cities I've been to and my favourite part about it is that you can just wander aimlessly and there's no corner of it without beauty. So after lunch, we had a leisurely stroll around the San Polo district, walking over canals, crossing bridges and stopping for photos every 5 seconds (much to Ollie's delight).

  

Last time I went to Venice (May 2017), my least favourite part was all the main touristy stuff. And yet, you can hardly go without doing it (especially since it was Ollie's first time there) so we took the plunge and crossed Rialto bridge and then explored St Marks square. Rialto bridge is beautiful but it's like the second you step off it the other side (in the San Marco district), there's a non-stop river of people that you can't escape. Gone are the quaint empty streets that you can wander down at leisure and instead it's replaced with selfie sticks and guided walking tours. I mean, I can't deny that the Basilica, the tower (that I went to the top of on my last trip) and the astronomical clock are beautiful, but the crowds do dampen them in my opinion. Especially since carnival was happening in Venice while we were there (the lead-up to Mardi Gras) so it was even busier! We were certainly glad to escape the hustle and bustle for a well-earned drink over looking the canal. Although Ollie got more than he bargained for when he ordered a large beer - it was literally the size of my head!

Then the sun started to set (very picturesque) so we walked back to our apartment, picking up some cannoli treats on the way. I LOVE cannoli and they were only €1.20 each so naturally I got a big bag full.

It was really hard deciding what to pack for Venice because I couldn't for the life of me work out how cold or warm 13 degrees was! Eventually I settled on an in-between kind of attire, like this black roll neck and thigh split rust skirt combo. I set off the plain outfit with an embellished bag and some proper hair bling (loved this look). Ollie's dad had very generously treated us to a meal out while we were away so we found the cutest little cave restaurant where we had the most amazing food and I enjoyed my third Aperol Spritz of the day (well, when in Italy). After getting slightly drunk on red wine, we found a little bar for some drinks and chats.

On to Monday morning and I was super excited because we had a day planned of doing some of the bits of Venice that I didn't tick off last time. We started the day with coffees and treats at a cute little bakery. During carnival, they sell something called a frittella (basically a custard donut) which I couldn't not try. Verdict: they were amazing. And luckily they didn't write me off too much, as we had another day of plenty of walking ahead! We were staying in the Dorsoduro district, and we'd done San Polo and San Marco the day before so it was time to tick off the fourth and final district, Cannaregio (the Jewish ghetto). My favourite part about it was how quiet and peaceful it was, and it had some beautiful buildings.

  

Our wander around Cannaregio was not purely for the scenery though; the reason behind going up there was because it's home to the ferry port of the boat that goes to Burano. The main islands surrounding Venice are Lido (the beach that I spent a day at last time), Murano (home to the production of all the blown glass) and Burano. Burano is a tiny little island about a 45 minute boat ride away from Venice and it's literally just filled with multi-coloured houses. It might actually be the prettiest place I've ever been to! It's well worth the trip and we timed it perfectly with the sunshine.

After getting back from Burano, we headed to the one thing that we'd pre-arranged before arriving in Venice, which was a wine tasting with cicchetti in the San Marco district. Wine bar 5000 was the cutest little place (only big enough to seat 10 or 15 people at most) and we enjoyed 4 lots of wine and cicchetti pairings. Prosecco with tomato cicchetti, a white wine with tuna cicchetti, a light red wine with salami cicchetti and then a full-bodied red wine with ham and ricotta cicchetti. Everything was amazing and definitely a cute thing to do when in Venice.

Another must-do in Venice is of course, a gondola ride. Yes, they're expensive (€80 for about 15 minutes) but I personally think they're worth it. Last time I was in Venice, we did a daytime gondola ride, so it was nice to experience something new with a night time one. It was so cute and romantic, tucked up under a blanket as we were rowed down the peaceful canals.

Then I got ready for the evening in stone-coloured trousers, black milkmaid top and pinned back curled hair. Because we'd skipped lunch and only had some cicchetti nibbles since breakfast, we were properly ready for dinner! It was a Monday night so all the restaurants were pretty quiet but we found a lovely spot for antipasti, pizza and lots more red wine. A perfect end to a perfect trip...

Wellllll, almost perfect. It wouldn't be me and Ollie without some drama on our holidays together. First, it was the riots in Barcelona, then mumps in Berlin and on the day we were travelling home from Venice, Italy hit the headlines for being the place with the most coronavirus outside of Asia. And so when we arrived home, we began a 2 week precautionary quarantine and have been asked to stay home from work. It wouldn't be us without some drama! Luckily our quarantine will be more than over in time for our next trip...