A matter of minutes after arriving in Venice, I was asking myself why it had it taken me this long to visit. I’d spent summers wandering around Tuscany, returned to Rome since my teens and roamed the Dolomites twice this year alone, but until this winter Venice had firmly been on my no-go list.
And for good reason. It’s not been a great few years for Venice tourism: in 2023 we learned that the city is introducing a €5 tourist tax for day-trippers; we read stories of travellers being ripped off when buying coffees on the Grand Canal, or acting like idiots in gondolas. Plus we’re constantly being reminded that Venice is sinking (figuratively and literally) under the strain of tourism.
