Part One

Venice is one of those cities that certainly everyone has a preconceived image of - narrow canals flowing alongside precarious pavements, houses built directly adjacent to flowing water with entrances directly opening on to the river allowing access only with a boat, multitudes of ornate bridges adjoining the many built-up islands, grand Venetian architecture and romance oozing out of every pore. It's doubtless the most unique city in the world - there is frankly nowhere else like it in the world and it stands as a wonder of the modern world whilst simultaneously a bizarre testament to older times. There's nowhere else for it to go - it can't be built on any further, and certainly wouldn't sustain history-destroying skyscrapers. So it remains as a periodic place and one of the few western world cities where one can go and experience a feeling of taking a step back in time and escaping cloying fumes and a general malaise of noise. Not a single car to be seen no matter where you go...

That's the image anyway. I was somewhat sceptical what the truth would be, and frankly did not know what to expect from the city. Horror stories of the over-commerciality of the place, the tourist traps of the Piazza San Marco, the over-crowding, abound. Surely the popular view of Venice can't be what it is actually like throughout? Maybe a small portion of it, but certainly not the entire populous. So December seemed like a good time to go and find out - it's the quietest time of the year, and although a lot of places will be shut or desolate, it's surely better than at height of summer, jostling against the tens of thousands of other tourists ruining the ambience and sniffing the putrid canal spewing forth fumes against the summer heat.

As a treat for Lisa, we go for her birthday (yeah I know, an old romantic at heart) for a short weekend. I manage to get good value scheduled British Airways plane tickets through a friend who works there, and the power of the Internet combined with the Rough Guide sorts out the accommodation. I book a reasonably priced hotel (400,000L for a double for two nights including bed and breakfast - details at the end of the journal), the Al Sole, conveniently close to the bus station at the entrance to Venice. The only pain is we're not going to have long here - we arrive late Friday afternoon and frustratingly, the return flight is at a worryingly early 7:15am on the Sunday. We've decided to not let this stop us enjoying our Saturday and no doubt subsequent late night - hell, we have a full day to sort out any unwanted hangover and tiredness.

We arrive at the Marco Polo airport approximately 7km out of Venice around 5pm and catch a taxi, snubbing the buses (I'm always wary of public transport in an unfamiliar foreign land - especially one where I know absolutely none of the local language, like the ignorant Brit I am). Being the rush hour it's a good half hour drive in to the city and costs us £20 to be dropped off at the same point the bus would take us in. Call me ignorant or stupid or whatever, but I had expected there to be some roads around Venice allowing access to cars - but no, nothing. After driving over the long bridge leading to Venice, you're presented with the bus station and high rise car park which looks just like any other and gives no indication to the type of city your in. However, just a short stroll over a bridge and it changes immediately. Viewing our Rough Guide to give us an indication of where to find our hotel we gather it should only be a few hundred yards to the hotel and wander in the general direction, feeling certain we'll have no problem finding it.