How will we get new sofas, dining table, beds, television, microwave and everything else we will need for a comfortable apartment from the shops along very narrow calli (streets) and up narrow stairs to our front door?

On top of all that, how will they find us? Our address is 5961 Cannaregio, Venezia. That’s like saying 5961 London, England. The first day we arrived in Venice after having purchased the apartment it took us two hours to find the place. The postman is the only person who knows his way around Venice. This whole thing is going to be fraught with problems.

However, we headed off full of confidence and enthusiasm.
Five minutes away from our calle is a fabulous department store called “Coin”. Being Italian, everything in the store was of course beautiful. We found chairs and tables we loved and asked how long would it take to have them delivered. Approximately six to eight weeks madam. What? We had people booked to stay in the apartment in four weeks time!

I hadn’t thought this through, there is so little room in Venice that all storage is on the mainland and on top of that, Italian time is a bit like Fijian time.
They couldn’t sell us the stock off the floor.

We could buy a limited range of bed linen, towels and not much else.

Another Aperol Spritz was needed, clearly.

We had a friend who lived in Padua and went to university in Venice (studying American English?!) so we found him and he said the best place would be SME in Marghera. There was a free bus for shoppers – not tourists – from the the Venice bus terminal at Piazzale Roma.

We headed off immediately, found the bus and climbed on board, desperately pretending to be Venetian shoppers. Complete waste of time, they know immediately.

However we arrived at SME all excited and ready to shop, walked in the doors, collecting a supermarket style trolley and started shopping for kitchen things first.

The trolley was about a quarter full when we noticed the lights dim and everyone leaving the store. They would be closed for two hours for lunch. God give me strength.

We were in an industrial area with no where to go. We sat down and waited.

Not even an Aperol Spritz.

Finally lunch was over and we managed to do all the shopping for the kitchen before dinner time. We went to a special counter for people like us, paid 100 euro deposit and they held everything until we had completed our purchasing a couple of days later.

With a long receipt showing a complete kitchens worth of purchases we very proudly got on the bus back to Venice feeling like we now belonged.