I’ve talked before how first impressions of a city can often make the most memorable of images, and there’s no place better for striking first impressions than Venice.

That is, of course, if you understand the geography of the place. There is the Venice we are familiar with through its reputation and media coverage – the lagoon, the canals, the gondolas, all the, if you’ll excuse the term, obvious stuff. But the other half of Venice is on the mainland, and this is indeed where most tourists will be accommodated, tourists of my calibre anyway – you’ve got to have real money if you want to stay in one of the swanky hotels that are actually on the lagoon. So if you get off at Venice Mestre train station expecting to walk out to a vista of shimmering water and traditional gondoliers , your first impressions will be of massive disappointment. A quick comparison would be to say it’s fairly similar to Pisa, a touch run down, a touch dirty.

Needless to say though, don’t judge the Venice experience on its mainland area. Get checked in to your hotel, nip back on the train and head to Venice Santa Lucia for your REAL first impression of Venice! Incidentally, the short distance between the mainland and lagoon stations might tempt you to call it a shuttle train, but once you’ve travelled on it you’ll realise nothing could be further from the truth. As soon as the trains leave the land and begin to travel over the water they slow down to a pace akin to an elderly jogger. Not really sure why either – occasionally other trains passed us going one way or the other at a much greater speed, and the views certainly weren’t worth slowing down for!

Anyway, as soon as you come out of Santa Lucia station you are presented with the Canale Grande which instantly brought a massive smile to our faces, especially as the weather was so lovely. This is the real first impression, and I don’t think any other moment on my trip produced such an adrenaline-fuelled grin. There’s something very special about being in a place which you have somehow seen so much of and known so much about, but have never experienced before. It very much felt, for me, like I was stepping into a movie set, that this was some kind of scene that had been set up for my benefit – I had to pinch myself and assure myself that the people who live and work here really do live like this every day! I guess it’s comparable to seeing the Eiffel Tower in the flesh for the first time, one of those iconic visions that everybody knows intimately before they arrive. The difference being that the Eiffel Tower draws into sight gradually and thus loses some of the impact that Venice boasts – step out the train station and WOW, it’s really there in front of you!

We crossed over the nearby bridge and headed in the general direction of St. Mark’s Square (Piazza San Marco). As soon as we started walking it became instantly apparent why Venice has such a reputation for getting so easily lost in. From the moment you move away from the Grand Canal (and you have no choice but to do so, there are no paths that follow the rivers directly), you find yourself in tiny narrow alleys, with high buildings surrounding you. Occasionally you reach an open square with several (usually unsignposted) exits and no real sense of which direction you’ve come from or wish to go. It takes just a few minutes in the heart of Venice to learn that the shops, the food stalls, the alleys, the buildings, the squares, the statues in the squares – they’re all identical! (You must at some point use the water bus service – not only as it’s a much more reliable means of transport than foot, but because it also affords plenty of new angles to admire Venice’s amazing architecture from.)

Eventually we found some signs to San Marco, so following them (though there were still several points where we were led to an unmarked square and had to guess which exit to take) we found our way to St. Mark’s Square. It was another eye-opening experience to finally get there – we turned a corner which we expected to be like all the other endless corners we’d turned and then suddenly, BANG! We were at St. Mark’s Square. Without expecting to find it, I guess we weren’t prepared, and upon stepping into the square we were washed over with awe just like we had been when we first arrived at the Canale Grande.

At one end of the square stands St. Mark’s Cathedral, and a tall bell tower. We entered at the opposite end so these two landmarks were instantly eye-catching, with the two adjacent sides of the square fading in inferiority. The square itself was also an equally obvious feature, littered as it was with thousands of pigeons, nearly all of which were flocking on the floor, often in big crowds around anyone willing to run the risk of feeding them. We were a bit paranoid about doing so, and probably rightly so considering the humble pigeon’s reputation for dropping excrement in England. A lot of pigeons + a lot of people feeding them = a lot of shit, so we steered clear of getting too involved and kept looking worriedly to the skies as we crossed the square! The next day when we returned though, we suddenly found ourselves at one with the pigeons, sitting by the water feeding them crushed Pringles (much cheaper than the specific pigeon feed on sale!) – an oddly enjoyable pastime.

When you’re done feeding pigeons, feed yourself. As you’d expect, eating in Venice is not cheap, unless you want to go back to the ugly mainland just to eat, which obviously you don’t. My tip would be to just walk down a couple of streets until you find something a bit cheaper – unsurprisingly you can pay double the price for the same meal if you consume it with a canal view. Also, I don’t think I’ve ever walked round a city or town and needed a beer more than I did in Venice. The endlessly repetitive nature of the streets, particularly on a hot day, sometimes makes the place feel like a maze that has to be navigated in order to be rewarded with cold beer. It’s no surprise therefore that a beer (40cl) tends to cost about the same as a whole, gorgeous, authentic Italian pizza.

Venice is an amazing place, and the first impression is unlikely to ever fade. Be warned though, whilst it’s undoubtedly unique it’s not perfect by a long way. Maybe I was a little naïve but one expectation I had that was quickly shattered was of bright blue delicious-looking water. The water in Venice is not pleasant. The photos and paintings we have become accustomed to at home are lies, complete falsities. Also, for those of us (like me and my cousin) who can’t afford to visit all the art galleries, nor have the patience or the interest to traipse around all the quaint arty shops, it offers little more than St. Mark’s Square. It’s an undeniably unique place but ultimately, I can’t help but feel, one that will always be remembered idealistically, and remain far more beautiful in one’s imagination than in one’s experience.