Romantic gondola seranade ride by moonlight in Venice, Italy

This year has been very exciting for selims raasta as we continue to grow, expand our family travel blog, travel to far away destinations from Europe to Asia to Oceana – and explore new partnerships. One of these new ventures was becoming a Tinggly Ambassador and I am happy to have done our first tinggly experience in a city famous for being one of the most romantic and prettiest cities in Europe – in Bella Venezia 🙂

So what exactly is Tinggly experience gifts? In a nutshell, it’s about giving unique special experiences rather than material goods to the ones you love! It can even be that special experience that you buy for yourself. Tinggly has over 350 experiences in 80 countries around the world to choose from – from motorbike rides in Bali, to canyoning and zipline experience in Costa Rica, to wine tasting in Melbourne, the list goes on! The process is very simple as well. You buy a Tinggly gift box and then the recipient gets to pick any of the experiences they want to choose from Tinggly.  Each of the experiences provides details of exactly what is covered – e.g. for how many people, if gear is provided, to pick up from hotel, age restrictions and other such details. Below is a mosaic snapshot of some of the experiences.

At first I considered trying out one of their many experiences in New Zealand but as it happened I was travelling to Italy and England end October and I saw that there was an experience I wanted to try in Venice. I felt this was an opportunity not to be missed so we booked a romantic Gondola serenade ride for two at 5:30pm thinking we would get to catch the sunset during our 40 minute Gondola ride. The ride goes through historic waterways where you pass through city’s well-known landmarks including the Palazzo Barbaro, the Ca’ d’Oro, and the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, home to the Guggenheim collection. You also get to see 13th century old architecture and several palaces whilst being serenaded by your gondolier. It sounded wonderful!

I had been to Venice last year with the family, smack in the middle of peak season – 1st week of August – and let’s just say, that part of our 7 country road trip was our least favourite. We had found it super crowded, way too hot and pricey, and also after enjoying the outdoors in Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia and Croatia, it was a shock to the system to be in such a crowded city destination. Never the less, we still found Venice to be very pretty and I was happy that I got this chance to go back during off season late October, and added bonus, two good friends were joining me from New York and London for the four days I was in Italy 🙂

I got to Venice bright and early in the morning and was lucky to witness a lovely sunrise as I travelled from Marco Polo Airport to San Marco by public boat taxi, costs €15 and takes you straight from airport to the centre of Venice in about 1-1.5 hours.

We spent the day exploring around Piazza San Marco mostly, admiring the beautiful architecture, the many canals and bridges, enjoyed good food and the best part – the lack of people!! I would so recommend visiting Venice off season rather than in the summer. We were lucky to have decent weather, bit cold, around 16 degrees but very sunny.

Saint Mark’s Basilica

Clocktower

In the evening we set out for our Gondola ride which left from Santa Maria Del Giglio, very centrally located.  Unfortunately, on that very sunday, daylight savings ticked over and what we thought would have been a late evening catching the sunset boat ride, was actually a moonlight gondola ride. As such it was very hard to get nice pictures of all the lovely buildings and canals we rode through. Eight gondolas with 4-6 people set off at the same time and one of the gondoliers from another boat serenaded the group as we passed through the iconic canals and historic waterways. Just a glimpse of some of the places we passed, but absolutely impossible to get decent pictures. It was quite lovely with the full moon, drifting along the waterways and admiring all the beautiful sights. Not quite so romantic as it was three friends, but we had fun none the less!

Would I recommend this Tinggly experience to others?

In all honesty, we had a fun time as it was good friends sharing the experience, we laughed and joked around a lot and I can imagine it would have been lovely to do it with your significant other and enjoy a romantic gondola ride together. However, I would only recommend doing it in the summer during the daytime when you really get to see the sights and experience Venice by water as it should be experienced. I think it’s a great gift to give to someone if they are planning on going to Venice. Sometimes you can’t bring yourself to indulge in such luxury, especially when in a city which is already expensive for other things, but if given such an experience as a present, why not 🙂

Disclaimer – As a tinggly ambassador, we were sponsored for our gondola serenade experience but as always, all opinions are my own.

Linked to Monday Escapes Our World Tuesday Outdoor Wednesday and Wednesday Wanderlust