What did I actually wear in Venice?

Not this

For three of the five days we were in Venice the streets were packed with people looking like this. It really was the only practical way to stay dry – so better to get wet right?

But it was cold too. And damp. That particular bone-chilling European damp.

On the Wednesday in particular there was rain like I have never known it. Biblical torrents.

It can chuck it down in Sydney, proper tropical stylee, so you are instantly drenched as if buckets of water have been thrown over you, but it only lasts about 15 minutes, then the sun comes out, everything smells of petrichor and you dry out.

In Venice it poured down, coldly, all day. There was no escaping it.

Standing in the queue to visit the basilica of San Marco was like some kind of game show trial . (But worth it for the most beautiful church I’ve ever been in. Sublime.)

Fortunately, I’d studied the weather forecast, so arrived – as per this post about my packing – with a tested rain jacket, my marvellous M&S-does-Ganny neoprene rain boots, …