It was an early start to the day as our Ryanair flight to Italy’s Treviso airport was departing from Leeds Bradford airport at 06.40 am.  The upside of this being that we were enjoying coffee and croissants in Piazza dei Signori (Treviso’s main square) at 10.30 am.   The town centre is only two miles from the airport and buses leave frequently from outside the arrivals hall.

Most tourists flying into Treviso Airport head straight for Venice, but unless time is at a premium, it’s a mistake as Treviso is a hidden gem, an historic town with Rennaissance squares interspersed with narrow canals.

The walled town has cobbled streets with stone arch passageways leading to shops and cafes.  Treviso’s main shopping street,  Via Calmaggiore has some interesting shops and the overall feel of the town is one of prosperity.     We visited the Duomo (cathedral) and spent a pleasant couple of hours just wandering along the narrow canal lined lanes admiring the views.

A little later we took the train into Venice, the latter part of the journey being very scenic as we crossed the long bridge towards the centre of Venice.  It’s a few years since I was last there, and then it was just on a day trip from Lake Garda where we had been staying.

 It’s still a breathtaking sight to walk out of Venice’s Santa Lucia railway station to be greeted with the Grand Canal and its water traffic in front of us.  We’d booked an apartment and arranged to meet the owner at the Academia Vaporetto station and as we were early and our bags weren’t too heavy, we decided to walk.  We stopped frequently to take photographs, the views seemingly improving at every turn.

As arranged, Victoria was there to meet us at Academia and showed us to our apartment which was just as well, as it was hidden away down a narrow alley.  We had the upper two floors of an old building.  It was surprisingly spacious inside with canal views from the roof terrace of our top floor roof balcony.

We soon discovered that we were staying in a very smart and peaceful neighbourhood with its own canals and brightly painted buildings,  away from the hordes of day trippers at St Mark’s Square yet not very far away for when we wanted to go there.  The remainder of the day was spent walking around,  looking at life in this city of waterways.

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