I’m told blogs are supposed to sound positive even if you’ve had a negative experience somewhere. I don’t know who made up that “rule”, but I will try to be somewhat positive on this blog about Venice even though in all honestly it truly was my least favorite place to visit so far in Italy.

Venice is a city in Italy that is built on islands so you get around on small water canals. To be fair Venice also has small bridges you can walk over to get from one little part of the city to another. Going there really wasn’t on my list of places in Italy that I wanted to visit because of the canals, but I knew my husband wanted to go so I finally agreed. Let me start out with what I did find positive about this part of Italy and then we will go with the negatives.

The biggest positive was the beautiful hotel we stayed at for our 30th Wedding Anniversary. (Hotel Ca’ Bonfadini) This hotel used to be a palace and looked beautiful on the inside. We were given a seriously nice room and my husband surprised me with some chocolate-covered strawberries he ordered from the hotel to be in our room. Everything about that room was welcoming. The food in Venice was also good. We did a tour of one of the old prisons. I think I might have been a little dehydrated because I was dizzy the entire time. We did stop in one of the little piazzas and went into a Church where an artist was showing his clay figures from the time Jesus was born until his resurrection. I did think that was very cool to see. We also did a lot of walking in Venice.

The negative for me was the bridges you need to walk over to get from one little town to the next. They aren’t the easiest things to go over. There are a lot of steps to go up and down. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if it wasn’t so hot that day. I really didn’t like those water canals. We took one water taxi back to our hotel which was okay, but for me, that boat was too close to the water. And we paid way too much for that taxi. Then there are the gondolas. I bit the bullet on that and decided to face a fear. We spent the money on a gondola ride and I was terrified the entire time. This is my gondola ride short if you would like to watch it and maybe get a laugh.

Overall I just wasn’t a fan of Venice, its water canals, its walking bridges, and getting lost trying to figure out where we were and ending up at a dead end that left you near yet another water canal.

Kathleen Smith is the author of Miscarriages: My Journey From Heartache to Healing, and other books. Blogs about a variety of things. Her podcast is Kathleen’s Korner and she is the CEO of BearsWithApps. OH, let’s not forget her YouTube channel