If you have never been to Venice, and you think you might go in the future, then here are a few Dos and Donts:

DON’T go if you don’t like hordes of people;
DON’T go if you are looking for an inexpensive city break;
DON’T go if you don’t like boats or water;
DON’T go if you have ligament problems in both knees and a dodgy back.

DO go for any other reasons not listed above, because Venice is beautiful on so many levels.

For Christmas, and because Andrew hadn’t written anything sensible in his letter to Father Christmas, I told the bearded, red-suited old coot (Father Christmas, not Andrew) to give him a 3 night break in Venice.

We have lots of friends who have been to Venice many times. Indeed, I have been before, many years ago, but very briefly. We got many splendid recommendations, and I (sorry, Father Christmas) booked a stay in the lovely Bloom Bed & Breakfast. We had a couple of options, included the much-praised Cima Rosa, right on the Grand Canal, but the bathroom of the available bedroom was across the landing and I wasn’t so sure about that. As it happens, the bedroom next to ours in Bloom had a similar arrangement - the guests had to walk past our bedroom door to reach their bathroom and one evening, when we returned, we went towards our bedroom, through a door that I hadn’t seen before and thought we’d stepped into someone else’s private space!

We had a really busy couple of weeks before the dates for our Venice trip, including a group of 4 people celebrating a 50th Birthday, with a special dinner followed by a breakfast on the morning of our own departure. So, as you can imagine, it was all a little fraught. There were no direct flights to Venice from either Granada or Málaga, which meant that we had to trek to Madrid. Trains seemed to be inordinately expensive, and domestic flights not much cheaper, so we caught the coach. We normally quite like this mode of transport, but it did mean adding a good 4 plus hours to the overall journey time. Oh well, we got a night-stop in Madrid, as the rain came down outside. The weather forecast in Venice for our stay looked amazing, whereas in Spain more Calima clouds and muddy rain was on the menu. I would never say we were glad to leave Spain, as we never are, but it was good to escape the orange ghastliness of Sahara sandstorms, even if just for a few days.

True enough, as we left the airport in Venice the sun was shining and it was a very pleasant temperature. The travelators from the airport lead almost directly onto the jetty, where water transport comes and goes between here and the city. I love boats and water, so the tantalising glimpse as we went down the final escalator was enough to get me very excited! We then reached our first little hurdle. We know very little about public transport in Venice, apart from the high cost of a private water taxi from airport to city centre - €120 ish. One of our friends suggested a shared taxi or the Alilaguna service, both of which reduced this cost markedly. We opted for Alilaguna (at €15 each) to discover that we’d have to wait an hour for the next ‘bus’! Despite the weak March sun, it was still brisk on a quayside, and not the place we really fancied standing for an hour. Plus, my knees were already giving me grief (see above reasons not to go to Venice).

So, we enquired about shared taxis, and it was then that we discovered that Venetian taxi drivers are not hugely helpful, presumably because they all have their eyes on the €120 passengers. The word “voucher” was muttered a few times, and we were fortunate that we actually had a link to a website where you could buy a voucher for the shared taxi; another recommendation from one of our friends. So, we’d paid for our Alilaguna tickets and then had to cough up a further €55 for a shared taxi voucher to be told that we’d still have to wait, as there were more clients due on our particular taxi.

I banged my head getting into the taxi. It’s not easy to bend double with dodgy knees and bad back. Breathe deeply…

All was well once we disembarked, and the arrival by boat into the city is a dream. Our room in Bloom was equally lovely; richly decorated and with windows overlooking the pretty Campo San Stefano. Bloom has a gorgeous roof terrace from where you can see the sun set over the rooftops, and the Campanile in the other direction piercing the milky blue sky. Complimentary bottles of Prosecco are available for guests, and there are few places better than this for such pleasure. Once we’d dumped luggage, we trotted down to the square for a drink in the sun, and such was our now-chilled mood, we couldn’t believe our luck. Venice; the sun shining; not too many people (at this stage) and a drink and cicchetti as we watched the world go by. There was a number of rather persistent pigeons flapping around the various tables. A group of America tourists at the adjacent restaurant threw crumbs to keep the wretched birds interested, but this was clearly not enough and every now and again, we’d find a pigeon sitting on our table giving us the evil eye. Suddenly, there was a massive flurry of hands and feathers and the remains of Andrew’s Aperol Spritz found its way into my lap, followed by glass Cicchetti plates. The pigeon problem is so bad that some bars and restaurants are giving their patrons water pistols to keep the wretched birds at bay.

Although we had many suggestions for places to eat, that first night we rather wanted to be close to our bed, so we asked the staff at Bloom for a couple of ideas. Al Bacareto was the closest, and it was a great introduction to Venetian food. The service was perhaps a little….Venetian; one of the waitresses really looked as if she hated anyone who was not born and bred in Venice, and there was a Venetian couple in the corner of our part of the restaurant who had staff flapping around them like the bloody pigeons above. Relax, we thought, we’re on holiday.

The bill for a fairly simple dinner - shared starter, followed by pasta dishes and a bottle of wine, came to over €70. Do not go to Venice if you are looking for a cheap date. We fondly remembered our first night out in Granada together, when we had tapas and raciones in Bodegas Castañeda, with a bottle of white Rioja, a further two glasses and lots of delicious food, and the bill amounted to €23. Well, we weren’t in Spain now.

To be continued….