A Weekend in Venice - and what was truly worth it

A quick, no pressure reminder…If you’d like to gain FULL ACCESS to my archive of wardrobe, homeware and travel edits, including my Little Black Book of Paris addresses, a subscription works out at just €5 a month (instead of 6€) if you sign up to the yearly membership (that’s only 1.16€ a week — less than a baguette!)

This was my third time in Venice and no two visits have been alike.

The first was when I was 18, during a month of inter-railing and backpacking around Europe with my stepsister on our gap year, before heading off to university. We were on a very tight budget and arrived grimy and sweaty off the train from Vienna (the second city on our trip after Prague). Venice was our first stop in Italy, where we would continue on to Verona, Pisa, Rome and finally Naples, before heading north again to the south of France and then our final destination: Barcelona. We chose to stay in a hostel inside a convent - for the equivalent of 10€ - sleeping in a 40-bed dormitory, with a 10pm curfew. As you might imagine, it was an experience that will forever remain one of the more surreal of my life!

I don’t remember much about our stay beyond trying to fall asleep surrounded by so many bodies, the city heat (we went in early summer), the chaos of navigating the vaporetti, and the two of us failing to make head or tail of a map. (During our recent trip, Victor and I kept saying: how on earth did people find their way around Venice before GPS? We even got lost a few times with it.)

The second visit (some 14 years later) was the polar opposite - a press trip to discover the Gritti Palace - one of the city’s most luxurious five star hotels. We were collected from the airport by the hotel’s Riva boat and sped across the lagoon like we were starring in a James Bond film.

On arrival we were treated to peach bellinis on the hotel’s terrace, which has one of the best views in Venice over the grand canal towards the majestic basilica Santa Maria della Salute, slept in rooms that can only be described as and lavish and fit for royalty, and were shown the very best of the city has to offer - the best pasta in town (if only I could remember the name of the restaurant), a visit to a glassmaking workshop in Murano and exploring the canals by the Bond boat. It was an unforgettable experience.

This time, with Leopold in tow, we opted for an Airbnb - a far cry from the plush interiors of the Gritti Palace (and the monastic convent), in favour of a kitchen for storing baby food and washing bottles. Motherhood has a wonderful way of reordering one’s priorities doesn’t it? But we were treated to the most amazing weather - blue skies every day (the city was half under water during the Gritti press trip) - we visited galleries & museums (one that has just opened), found a brilliant wine bar in the quieter, cooler part of the city, ate the best mint choc chip ice-cream that I’ve had in a long time and wandered through a vine-yard. Here’s everything we did during our time, where we stayed and where we dined…

STAY