She won’t thank me for telling you this but my wife turned 40 last year. To commiserate, I was going to treat her to a romantic weekend in Venice, but decided to throw a surprise party instead – a decision I regretted the day before the big event when she warned me: “It had better not be anything where I’m the centre of attention because I won’t enjoy it.”
Oh dear… The next big date in the Lane family calendar was our wedding anniversary, and this time I decided to take no chances and make that trip to Venice. The only trouble was we couldn’t get a babysitter – the kids would be coming with us.
Venice has long been a favourite for honeymooning couples, but does it cut the mustard as a family destination? Well, maybe not if you stay in the city – one day’s sightseeing was enough for our kids. A wise alternative is to stay in one of the Adriatic coastal resorts instead.
Make this your clients’ base for day trips to Venice as well as the neighbouring islands of Burano, Murano and Torcello and they can reward their offspring’s patience by treating them to a day at the Aqualandia water park, near Lido di Jesolo, once they’ve finished soaking up the local culture.
We opted for Keycamp’s site at Ca’Savio, right on the coast and a 30-minute boat ride from Venice. After driving the short distance to the port of Punta Sabbioni, a water taxi took us right into the heart of the city. Having been warned of the exorbitant prices, we planned to steer clear of the gondoliers touting for business at the entrance to the Bridge of Sighs, but that was before we came across Franco the American.
Though he looked the part with his traditional blue and white stripped shirt and matching cravat, things changed when Franco opened his mouth. Imagine a cross between Spike the dog in the Tom and Jerry cartoons and a New York taxi driver and you start to get a feel for Franco’s accent. Though born and brought up in Venice and a gondolier for over 20 years, Franco had once lived in the US, an experience which clearly had a profound effect on the way he pronounced his ‘woirds’.
“How much is it to hire a gondola?” I enquired.
“How many of yas are dere?” asked Franco.
“Five.”
“Den dat’ll be twennie euros each, one hunnerd for da lotta yas.”
Meanwhile, all along the water’s edge, parties of two, three and four were busy bargaining before settling on the standard price of €100.
If there are two of you it’s €50 per person; if there are four it costs e25. You might think you strike a mean bargain but there’s no gondolier in town who’s going to risk the wrath of his mates by undercutting them.
Still, at €20 each for a party of five, the 45-minute trip, complete with running commentary, is not the rip-off you might fear. The gondoliers take you under the Bridge of Sighs and into Venice’s network of canals, a world away from the heaving crowds in St Mark’s Square. It really is a great way to explore.
But despite the tranquillity, there’s an undercurrent of tension between the gondoliers and the speedboats sharing the canals. Every time Franco rounded a sharp bend he would call out to warn traffic coming in the opposite direction we were there.
“Dat’s like my car horn,” he explained. But this didn’t stop a few near-misses as Italian speedboat drivers performed a near-perfect impression of their counterparts on the roads.
“We’ve been fighting against dem sons a bitches for 50 years,” said Franco. He used to have to work a second job in the winter to make ends meet, but the growing popularity of city breaks means there’s now enough business all year round. But as his mood grew worse with every passing speedboat, I began to wonder whether this was a good thing for the old man’s blood pressure.
The other must-do water-based experience in Venice is to take a taxi up the Grand Canal. A private tour costs €90 per taxi, but we took local transport and a return trip set us back a mere e20 for five people.
It gets a bit crowded but vaporetto route one takes you from St Mark’s Square to Piazzale Roma and back, with great views of the palaces on either side.
After that it was time for us to catch our ferry back to Ca’Savio. As we waited to board, Franco came past with his latest set of passengers, berating a speedboat for making waves as he rowed.
“Did you see dat?” he shouted at me. “De gondolas can’t get past da wave – put dat in yer article.”
It was an offer I couldn’t refuse.
