We spent two days exploring Venice, Italy and all of its nooks and crannies.

I never thought in my wildest dreams that I was going to be in Italy in May 2025. Things I’ve learned lately is that life takes a bunch of weird, unexpected turns, and while I thought I was going to be living in India for a year, that didn’t end up happening and I was left unexpectedly unemployed at home.

It was the random unemployment and the fact I could make an income off of freelancing that led me to take an entire year off to travel, do some content creation, and find out what exactly made me happy as a person. It is such an incredible privilege to be able to do this, and I’m still going to be saving like I do in the future to go on more trips.

As a consolation for not going to India, I did end up booking a trip through a company called EF Ultimate Break. It’s geared towards Canadians and Americans, but basically they end up planning the entire trip for you when you book one of their tours. I was deciding between Europe and Morocco, but decided to go with Europe because that felt splashier and more adventurous (I would be someone who would pick Morocco instead, but I wanted to go outside of my comfort zone).

Italy was the first stop of this Alps road trip, so one Friday night I boarded a British Airways flight to London. As soon as I stepped foot in Heathrow I knew this was going to be an adventure, and I was so excited to see what Europe had to offer. I’d been to Asia multiple times before, but never had I stepped foot in Europe.

My flight to Venice’s airport took about another hour and fifteen minutes, then I hailed a taxi after clearing through immigration to get to my hotel in Mestre. From there on, it was time to get rolling and see what Venice had to offer. We weren’t staying on the island (we were in Mestre), but it was an easy twenty minute bus ride or taxi to get to the main part of the island.

Let’s get into the details of what we did!

The first night, we explored the area around the university and some shops in Mestre.

When I arrived from the airport, I was still running on US time, and I had slept through most of my flights. That meant I was really able to get going as soon as I arrived. I dropped my stuff off in the room given to me, laid on the bed for like thirty minutes, then went to the welcome dinner provided by the tour company.

I noticed immediately our neighborhood in Mestre was definitely a South Asian or Middle Eastern one from the Bangla signs and the halal meat stores, which was interesting to see as someone who studies Bangladeshi and South Asian migration. We went to dinner at a local bar and restaurant, where they served us homemade lasagna, tiramisu, and some roasted vegetables.

The food there was fantastic, and I knew we were off to a great start food-wise. I learned throughout this trip that the food in Europe tasted better, with the key places for best taste being both Italy and Switzerland for me.

After dinner, we boarded a bus that took us to downtown Venice on the main island. It was a 20 minute bus ride and fairly comfortable, as not a lot of people besides us were on the bus. The area it dropped us off at was near the university, and it was pretty quiet compared to the main part of Venice that we were going to the next day.

We spent about three hours in the area taking pictures and soaking in the views. There were a lot of cheap gelato spots around here, so some of my group picked up a cone or two as we wandered through the streets.

It was nice to start off with this area, as I mentioned before the main tourist part of Venice gets extremely packed during the day. I got back to the hotel around 10 PM, put on my pajamas, waited for my roommates to come back, then passed out for our early wakeup the next day.

The main tourist section of Venice is worth seeing at least once in your lifetime.

The next morning, we woke up, collected a breakfast from the hotel’s cafeteria, then prepared to head out for the day. This was where I tried Italian fruit for the first time, and throughout the trip I was just blown away by how much better the fruit tasted in Europe. The pineapple at our breakfast buffet was just fantastic every time I grabbed some.

Our tour included a private boat that took our group to the island. We all boarded, and I took a seat at the top to see what kind of views we were going to get when we approached the island from the mainland. Almost immediately, I was zoning in on the churches and old architecture that’s existed for so many centuries.

We were dropped off at the port, where officials immediately wanted to check our QR codes (Venice charges a tourist tax unless you’re staying in the area—we were, so we just had to present our codes). Then began our walking tour—our guide led us through the main square, pointing out the church and the Doge’s Palace, then we began wandering deeper into the narrow alleyways of Venice.

These are some tight alleys, and the city is mainly connected by bridges and canals. We had booked gondolas for later in the day, but as our guide led us through some tight corners, you could really see how the residents were living literally on the water. For some buildings, the water lapped up right into the bottom sections. This is an area really under threat because of climate change due to this.

To finish off our walking tour, we walked back towards the main square, took a turn down an alleyway, and ended up at a glass blowing shop. It took less than ten minutes for then to show us how their handcrafted vases were made, then they gave us an extended sales pitch.

After that, we split up for thirty minutes before our next activity. Two girls and I decided to go see the shops around the glass blowing shop, and we picked up some small trinkets. We then walked back to the square for the next phase of our Venice adventure: seeing the area from the water.

Wandering around and traveling by water is a must-do experience in Venice.

Phase two of our second day in Venice was seeing the city from the water. We boarded a classic gondola, with five people per gondola. It’s usually 90 euros per gondola, but we paid 45 per person for this and a private water taxi later on in the day. I was pretty unsure about the gondola going into it, but I am glad I did it.

It was a thirty minute ride around the canals, and we passed by major landmarks such as the Rialto Bridge (which was packed with people—that was a common theme as the day went on). The water itself I would never touch (it kind of smelled like sewage), but as we navigated through the small canals I got some incredible pictures and thought that it was a different perspective to view the city from.

The gondola dropped us off near the square, then we had free time until 4 PM to wander the city. What we did is we found a nice lunch spot on the water by the Peggy Guggenheim Museum, and as we ate our pizzas and pasta we chatted and looked out at the incredible views of boats and buildings on the water.

Then we got some more gelato (which was delicious as well) from a shop next door and just walked around, popping into shops here and there. I think Venice is a place you really need to wander in, as there are shops, restaurants, and museums tucked into little corners here and there.

So go beyond the main square and shopping while you’re here! We ended up at a little hole in the wall bar, where my new friends raved about the coffee cocktails, then we headed back for our private water taxi.

Basically it was a thirty minute ride in a luxury water taxi around the city, with the guy dropping us off at the beginning of the port where our tour bus was. It was really cool because of how nice the boat was, and there were only about five people per boat. We took turns looking out the main section and seeing the sights, taking pictures and poinitng out the landmarks as they passed by.

After that, we headed back to the hotel with the bus and freshened up before our next adventure for the evening began: a family-run winery tour.

A winery tour is also something that is incredible to do when in Italy in general.

For the winery tour, we boarded our tour bus and headed to the Venetian countryside to visit a winery that has been family run for four generations. I’m not a wine girl, but some of these wines were pretty good. Before that though, we got a tour of the grounds and saw where the grapes were growing. A lot of them were decades old in some sections.

This excursion came with a meal and wine tasting. They served us potato chips, fresh farm cheese, and pizza bread as the appetizer as we began with the first two wines. The owner explained to us in English what the wines were and how he made them, then we tasted them at the same time.

The second course came with the next two wines, which were dark red ones. We were served pasta and bread to pair with them, which were delicious. It was during this part of the meal that the patriarch of the wine family, the 85-year-old grandfather, came out to sing some opera for us.

He sang throughout the rest of the night, and we were served cake and a dessert wine to finish our the meal with. After that we were allowed to purchase bottles of wines were 16 euros. I didn’t have checked luggage, so I stayed away from that, but if I did I would have purchased the prosecco for sure.

This was it for the night, as we drove back. My roommates went out, but I showered, put on my pajamas, and then watched some Korean dramas before going to bed.

Here’s a different perspective from the same trip.

In summary: I wish I had more time in Venice.

I had such a great time in Venice, but I think these two days were too short for me. I didn’t even get to go inside some of the art museums and the Doge’s Palace because the lines were incredibly long. When we first arrived at 8 AM, the plaza was actually pretty empty and easy to get around. By 1 PM, it was wall to wall full of people and not enjoyable.

I think in the future I’ll definitely come back to Venice for another two or three days to finish up everything else I didn’t get to see. After that, I think I’ll be done with Venice and I won’t need to come back. It’s a place I enjoyed a lot,but I don’t see myself coming back here often.

And that’s a wrap on this city! I went to a bunch of different ones in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland, so those blog posts are going to be coming out soon.

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