Venice, Italy.
Venice
Veneto, Italy.
In May of this year, we were supposed to be returning to Aruba for our first ‘long’ trip since you know what. Alas, a couple of weeks before Christmas Tui decided they no longer wanted fly to Aruba and promptly cancelled our holiday. Which was nice.
However, in a momentary lapse in my standard ‘glass half empty’ mindset, rather than be disappointed I suggested we take it as an opportunity to revise our plans and see places we haven’t visited before. Furthermore, as it’s my 50th birthday year and throwing a big party is my idea of purgatory, travelling is I hope going to be my way of celebrating.
Anyway, whilst I don’t have a bucket list, if I did… seeing Venice would be on it. I have always wanted to go…. it was a dream destination for me… so, I suggested it to my wife and fortunately she was totally onboard.
Long story short, we booked the flights etc. straight away (not with Tui of course!) and ended up having the most amazing few days. It was everything I had dreamt of and more. I love Italy… the history, the people, the food and Venice did not disappoint. It truly is a beautiful place regardless of the weather (which was cold… changeable but cold).
I would also totally recommend going in the Winter. I can’t imagine how crazy it would get in the Summer with 40 million visitors a year…. not my idea of fun.
So here a few of the images I took throughout our trip. Thank you to British Airways for great flights, to the Hotel Casanova for an fantastic stay, to all of the wonderful people we met and to Sylvia and Francesco for being such great guides. After a tough few weeks you all made our trip perfect.
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We all take photos out of plane windows…. this one is (I think) of the Swiss Alps and I love it!
St. Marks Basilica…. like travelling back in time.
A huge Tintoretto canvas in the Doges Palace.
An Aperol Spritz. Didn’t care for it myself but they were everywhere!
The Grand Canal from the Academia bridge. It’s breathtaking.
The Grand Canal from the Rialto Bridge. It’s also breathtaking.
I’ve included this image not because I like it… it’s a bit too much for my tastes to be honest. But on our last evening there was the most amazing sunset and we got to the Rialto Bridge just in time to take a couple of shots before the sun quickly disappeared. The bridge was rammed with people watching the sun go down… and we were treated with what we now know was a Sun Pillar…. sunlight reflecting off falling ice crystals from thin high level clouds. It’s no exaggeration when I say it was like seeing a beam of light from the heavens…. this images doesn’t come close to doing it justice.
Images © John Colson.