May 9, 2025 · 6.2 miles · Venice, Italy
Most people visit Venice once and tick it off the list. We went back. Of course we did.
This was our second trip to Italy — the one where Venice was both the first stop and, as it turned out, the one that stuck longest in the memory. We arrived by train, walked out of Santa Lucia station and straight into the city. No car. No transfer. No buffer. Just Venice, immediately, all at once.
We had one day. We used all of it.
The morning belonged to the backstreets. Before San Marco fills up, before the tour groups unfurl their umbrellas and the selfie sticks come out, Venice is a completely different city. Narrow calli where you have to turn sideways to pass someone. Sudden campi that open up like held breath. A canal you didn’t expect. A church you can’t find on the map.
We found a sandwich place somewhere in those streets — tiny, maybe ten people inside at a squeeze, absolutely packed with locals who clearly ate there every day. We knew immediately we’d found something right. No English menu. No tourist pricing. Just very good sandwiches and the comfortable noise of a place that doesn’t need to advertise.
If you find it, you’ll know.
Then the traghetto. Not the €80 gondola ride with the singing and the striped shirt. The €2 one — the flat-bottomed working boat that crosses the Grand Canal the way it always has, standing up, two minutes, locals only really. We stood. We crossed. We felt briefly, gloriously Venetian.
San Marco is unavoidable and worth it. The Campanile reaches straight up into the blue. The clock tower — the Torre dell’Orologio, with its zodiac dial and its golden lion — stops you in your tracks even when there are a thousand people around you. The Procuratie Vecchie arcade along the north side of the square is the best place to pause and watch everyone else trying to take the same photograph.
The Bridge of Sighs from the embankment. Exactly as it looks in every photo, except real, except in front of you, except you’re standing there and it’s actually happening.
Somewhere between the two walks — because of course there were two, because of course we weren’t finished — we found a table in the sun and ordered Birra Moretti and chips. Not a plan. Just the right thing at the right moment. Venice charges for the privilege of sitting still, and on this occasion we paid it without complaint.
The afternoon was the backcanals. Away from San Marco, away from the Rialto crowds, Venice gets quiet very quickly. A junction where three canals meet and the reflections go perfectly still. A gorgeous wooden taxi boat — mahogany and Italian flag — carving through a narrow channel like it owns it. A campo where the only sounds were pigeons and someone’s television.
The mask shops are everywhere. The good ones stop you. Harlequin, mirror, velvet — the whole Venetian mythology of disguise and spectacle pressed up against the glass. We didn’t buy anything. We didn’t need to.
We want to come back. Burano next — the coloured houses, the lace, the island that looks like someone turned the saturation up to maximum. And Murano for the glass. Venice rewards return visits, and we are clearly people who return.
The train home. Tired feet. Two walks, one day, one city that you could spend a lifetime in and still not finish.
Crammed that in well.
Part One: 2.65 mi · 1:16:38 · 6,318 steps Part Two: 3.55 mi · 1:22:45 · 8,464 steps Total: 6.2 miles · Venice, Italy · May 9, 2025 Route: Santa Lucia · Backstreets · San Marco · Rialto · Backcanals · Dorsoduro