Benvenuti a Venezia

Woohoo, Venice baby!

We first visited Venice back in 2002 when me and my boyfriend (now hubby) backpacked round northern Italy. It was our first holiday together and we were pretty skint but we fell in love with the place, especially Venice and always vowed we'd go back one day and today is the day!

We caught the train from Lake Garda this morning and I was so excited as this was the bit of the holiday that I'd personally been looking forward to the most. When we walked out of the train station and I saw the busy grand canal with boats going up and down and no cars in sight a broad smile spread across my face as it was exactly as I'd remembered. The kids were on the look out for gondolas straight away as I've been telling them about the boats for some time now and were very excited when they saw some. We caught a 'bus' boat to a residential area in Cannaregio which is to be our base for the next four nights.

Once we'd unpacked it was time to explore the alleys and take in the atmosphere. The kids loved looking at all the masks on the stalls and in the shops as we'd promised to buy one for Olivia's birthday tomorrow (and for Dex too!).