Venice — Woot!

Our train trundles slowly across the open sea, stucco buildings threading the skyline, waters lapping at their base. “Look!” I exclaim, quite childishly excited. “It’s Venice.”

“Yeah,” says the boy, with frankly limited enthusiasm. After ferrying from London to the Netherlands – “Look, son! Windmills!” — and wandering the canals of Amsterdam, I’m beginning to wonder whether he’s hit his threshold for beautiful European cities already. Which would be a shame, given we’re in Italy for a while.

Through the train goes, and into the bowels of an ugly, provincial railway station, its fascist architecture shrouded in scaffolding, the usual scungy station shops scattered about, ticket booths, postcard stores, mass brand advertising and tired-looking tourists.

We disembark from the train, fend off a token porter, and wind our way up an ugly grey ramp into an ugly faux-granite passageway. And then… we’re out.

And a few paces ahead of us is the Grand Canal, water taxis whizzing by, sunlight sparkling off the water, the oxidised dome of San Simeone glistening across the water, a network of bridges winding away to either side, stucco palazzos lining the waterfront, and the boy emits an eminently satisfying “Wow.”

Venice, I think, is going to work. It’s going to work absolutely fine. And, unlike when I was last there, over 20 years ago, there’s not even a whiff of drain from the canals.

If your approach to the city is to knock off Saint Mark’s, the Doge’s Palace, the Rialto and the Accademia in a single day before hopping onto your next flight, you’ll likely spend a miserable day of queues and crowds, relieved only by insanely expensive gelatos and espressos.

I’m constantly irritated when people list Venice (as, for that matter, when people list Bali) as one of the world’s worst tourist traps.

Sure, Venice is busy. Even when Henry James swung through, over a century ago, the notion of a holiday in Venice was very far from original.

And if your approach to the city is to knock off Saint Mark’s, the Doge’s Palace, the Rialto and the Accademia in a single day before hopping onto your next flight onwards, you’ll likely spend a miserable day of queues and crowds, relieved only by insanely expensive gelatos and espressos.

But you don’t need to go far off the main drags to find deserted alleyways, tiny canals with motorboats parked like the family car, crumbling palazzos, minuscule bridges leading to a single house, old ladies gossiping on quiet squares, and quirky stores.

Not that, on our first afternoon here, we’ll be doing any of that.

We’re staying out of the old city, in what’s almost certainly the cheapest accommodation in Venice, so our main priority is to grab a bite to eat, soak up the canals, and find out whether my bargain booking is a genius wheeze that spares us tonnes of cash for food or a recipe for utter misery.

We drag our suitcases up and over bridge, after bridge, after bridge, bumping them up the stairs, and bumping them down again, handles torquing and flexing, cases slewing wildly from side to side in a rattle of wheels.

For this jaunt around Europe, we’ve traded down from our customary backpacks to a pair of wheelie suitcases which have been gathering dust in my loving parents’ attic since we left the UK in 2010.

This is primarily because both of us feel like twats lugging backpacks around Western Europe – I remember, as a resident, how very annoying it was to have someone’s backpack in your face on the Tube — but also because we’ll be taking bucketshop flights and these suitcases were bought to fit the hand baggage allowance precisely.

However, as we drag our suitcases up and over bridge, after bridge, after bridge, bumping them up the stairs, and bumping them down again, handles torquing and flexing, cases slewing wildly from side to side in a rattle of wheels, this feels, to be frank, like something of a miscalculation.

I’m simultaneously pleased and embarrassed to note how very many guys take pity on Zac’s invisible musculature and physically take his suitcase from him and lug it up the stairs.

Priority number one, however? Food.

He cuts a neat slice of tomato, splits a mozzarella ball exactly in half, spears the pair, and pops it in his mouth. And then he reaches for the cruet, and drizzles his plate neatly with olive oil.

Just by Piazzale Roma, where all the out-of-town buses disgorge and pick up, and where the Peoplemover monorail system carries folk from the islands to the mainland, we find a pretty, canalside bar that looks like it’s not going to break the bank (it’s Grecia & Oriente, if you care).

I order a Spritz, the national drink of Venice – Campari (or Aperol, if you wish) and Prosecco with ice and perhaps a splash of soda – and a tagliere. Zac goes for an insalata caprese, limpid mozzarella and ripe, juicy tomatoes scattered with a little dried oregano.

He cuts a neat slice of tomato, splits a mozzarella ball exactly in half, spears the pair precisely, and pops it in his mouth. And then he reaches for the cruet, and drizzles his plate neatly with olive oil.

“No balsamic?!” I ask. (Zac’s obsessed with balsamic and, left to himself, has been known to dress salads using balsamic and salt alone.)

“No,” he says. “I think it would spoil the flavour of the tomatoes.”

My god, I think. He’s learning! He’s already learning!