I’ve had my fair share of travel tales. As a tour guide of some years (and more grey hairs than I had when I started), you learn to expect the unexpected. You pack patience alongside your passport. You anticipate delays, rain when the forecast says sun, and the odd missing suitcase. But what I never expected… never in my guiding days… was to accidentally break into Venice.
Yes, you heard me. Not stroll in. Not ferry in. But break in, Colditz-style.
It all started innocently enough, as these things often do. A few years ago, Rick Steves asked if I’d mind helping out a new guide on one of his European tours. I was flattered, of course. Being a “tour whisperer” is a badge of honour, though it does occasionally mean playing babysitter to someone who still thinks Google Maps works properly in medieval cities.
The new chap… let’s call him “Brad” (not his real name, but it sounds appropriately green)… was a few tours in, keen as mustard, and armed with every itinerary and emergency contact number laminated and neatly tabbed. I admired his optimism. You need it in this line of work.
The tour had been running rather smoothly, and the group was lovely—well-travelled, good-humoured, no one asking if they’d need a plug adapter for Switzerland after we’d left it. The kind of group that made you believe group travel could be poetry in motion.
Our next destination: Venice. That glittering labyrinth of stone and water. That floating dream where logic goes to drown and gets charged €7 for a coffee while doing so.
We’d just arrived at the bus station beside the main vaporetto (water bus) terminus. It was September, technically autumn, but the sun had missed the memo. The humidity could’ve steamed a pudding, and we were all glistening like Renaissance saints in oil paintings.
Despite the sweat, spirits were high. The buzz of arriving in Venice never fails. There was the usual scramble for sunglasses, the excited chatter about gondolas, and the occasional disappointed realisation that we wouldn’t be staying at the Cipriani.
Now, it was the weekend of the big Venetian Regatta, a pageant of colour and chaos that clogs the canals and brings the city to a festive halt. It’s a marvel, truly. Unless you happen to be navigating it with twenty suitcases and a schedule.
Our boat arrived, and we loaded up. It was a jigsaw of rolling luggage, straw hats, and mild anxiety. The waters shimmered under a mercifully clear sky. No cruise ships in sight… hallelujah! It was Venice at her most serene.
Brad and I stood near the front of the vaporetto, pretending we knew where we were going. The hotel was a new one for the tour, some logistical upgrade from HQ in Edmonds, and neither of us had seen it in person. Brad, bless him, had led a few tours to Venice before, but always to the same hotel on the same canal. Like a homing pigeon trained for one perch only.
Now, I don’t want to say I was distracted, but I was leaning over the boat rail having a gentle chat with a couple of tour members, enjoying the breeze and mentally composing my “Ten Best Things to Say When You’re Lost in Venice.”
That’s when our pilot, a leathery man with a moustache that looked like it had outlived two wars, shouted something incomprehensible and gestured vaguely toward an upcoming dock. Brad, ever eager, nodded. The pilot looked puzzled. Brad nodded again, more confidently, with a shrug that said, “Sure, why not?”
And so, the boat steered in, docked, and we disembarked like seasoned professionals… rolling bags, wide-brimmed hats, and all. I gathered the flock on the platform while Brad, I thought, thanked the pilot. The boat coughed to life again and chugged off into the haze.
Then came that moment. The kind all guides know…. A sinking feeling… a deep sinking feeling.
I turned to Brad and asked casually, “So… where’s the hotel from here?”
He blinked. “Oh, the pilot said we shouldn’t get off here.”
I tilted my head. “He said what now?”
Brad’s face shifted. You could see the cogs jam. “Well… he said it wasn’t the right stop, but I thought… he looked at me… I thought he meant something else. Or maybe I didn’t hear him right.”
I looked around. No other passengers had gotten off. The dock was… strangely empty. No dock attendant. No signage. No way off the platform. No open gates.
Just us. And Venice. Laughing from a distance… laughing loudly.
And that’s when it hit me.
Regatta weekend.
Station closures.
The boat we’d just waved off had been the last stop before the local vaporetto stations started shutting down for the event. Not only were we at the wrong stop, we were trapped at the wrong stop.
Imagine a concrete cage, surrounded by picturesque water, with iron fencing tall enough to repel pirates. It had a locked gate and no visible staff.
We were in a vaporetto enclosure. A pen. A trap. And we were twenty-odd lost sheep with wheely bags.
Panic began to hum beneath the surface. The group looked at me, then Brad, then me again. I gave the smile tour guides use when everything is on fire but they want you to enjoy the view. “Just a minor hiccup, folks! Venice is full of wonderful surprises!”
Brad looked like he might cry. I patted his shoulder. “You’re doing fine. This will make a great story one day. Assuming we don’t all die here and become ghosts that haunt this station forever.”
We did the sensible thing first: tried the gates. Locked. No luck. Tried waving at a passing boat. They waved back, smiled, and floated on. I considered writing an SOS in sun cream on the dock.
Then we spotted them.
Across the canal… a bar. An open bar. A few Venetians were sitting outside, sipping cold beer and watching us with the bemused expressions of locals who had seen everything. One of them raised a bottle in salute. Another pointed and laughed.
Desperate times call for dramatic gestures. Brad began jumping up and down. I waved my hat. Someone in the group blew a whistle (I still don’t know why they had a whistle). Eventually, we got their attention… or rather, they tired of the pantomime and decided to engage.
One man disappeared inside the bar. Moments later, out he came… with the bartender… and a crowbar.
Hope swelled. So did concern.
Was this legal? Unlikely.
Were we going to question it? Not for a second.
The Venetians strolled over, grinning like pirates, and with no sense of urgency began examining the fence. The bartender tapped one panel thoughtfully, then inserted the crowbar and, after a bit of theatrical grunting… crack! A sliver of daylight. Another pop of metal. And another. Eventually, a jagged flap of fencing peeled open.
It wasn’t glamorous. It wasn’t safe. But it was freedom.
Like prisoners staging the slowest jailbreak in history, we began shimmying through the gap, one by one, dragging luggage behind us. A few got stuck. One gentleman lost a sandal. A lady laughed so hard she needed a sit down before her turn.
Colditz? Pah. This was the Venetian Resistance. Operation Suitcase Shuffle.
We emerged into the open air like war heroes. The bartender bowed. The crowd at the bar cheered (well, politely nodded). The group, ever cheerful, applauded. Brad looked like he might faint from relief.
The bartender handed us each a cold beer… on the house for the effort (but probably on the bill if we’d stayed longer). It was the best-tasting lager I’ve ever had. Not because it was cold. Because it tasted of escape.
We trudged off toward the hotel, following a route cobbled together via Brad’s backup printouts and my vague recollections of a Venice walking tour I took in 2003. Eventually, we found the hotel… a charming little place tucked into a quiet campo… and collapsed in a heap of laughter, sweat, and suitcase wheels.
That evening, over spritzes and spaghetti, the group relived the day in exquisite detail. “Do you remember when Gary got his suitcase stuck?” “And when Linda tried to squeeze through sideways and nearly took the fence with her?” “And the bartender—what was his name, Angelo?—with the crowbar!”
It became legend before dessert.
And as for Brad, he recovered admirably. Took it on the chin, laughed at himself, and learned the cardinal rule of guiding in Venice: never shrug at a boat pilot.
As for me?
It remains the only time I’ve broken into a city. Not out. In. And the only time I’ve escaped captivity via crowbar in front of applauding locals.
A proper Venetian adventure.
And honestly?
I wouldn’t change a thing.
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