by Venice on a shoestring, August 1990. One overnight bus, a Walkman full of Venetian music, and just enough money to get myself into trouble. What could possibly go wrong?
Italy for 56 Deutsche Marks? Count Me In!
It was August 1990, and I had a problem.
Money was tight, but my appetite for travel was considerably healthier than my bank balance. And if there’s one thing I’ve never been particularly good at, it’s sitting at home patiently waiting for my next holiday.
Patience may be a virtue, but it has never been one of my more impressive qualities.
Earlier that summer, while travelling around on various day trips with my Polish girlfriend, I’d noticed a rather interesting bus service from Munich to Venice.
The concept was wonderfully simple. Board the bus late at night, arrive in Venice the following morning, spend the day exploring, and return to Munich that evening.
No hotels. No expensive flights. No unnecessary luxuries.
And the price?
56 Deutsche Marks. Return!
For anyone unfamiliar with the old German currency, that was roughly €28.60 at the later official conversion rate. Although, of course, €28.60 bought considerably more in 1990 than it does today.
There was one minor condition: miss the bus back, and you were on your own.
Fair enough, I thought.
I wasn’t exactly swimming in money. Nevertheless, I was convinced that one day would be plenty of time to discover Venice.
As it turned out, ten hours were more than enough to fall hopelessly in love with the place.
A Walkman, Rondò Veneziano and a Young Man with Questionable Musical Taste
Late one evening, I left our flat near Munich’s Baldeplatz and walked towards Gärtnerplatz, where the bus was due to depart at around 11 pm.
Naturally, I arrived far too early.
But when you’re about to visit Venice for the first time, excitement does strange things to your walking speed.
And what was playing on my Walkman?
Heavy metal? The Rolling Stones? Something fashionable for a young man in his early twenties?
Not quite.
Rondò Veneziano.
Yes, really.
For those who don’t know them, Rondò Veneziano are an Italian musical ensemble famous for combining baroque-inspired melodies with modern arrangements.
Not exactly the soundtrack most young men would have chosen for a night out in Munich.
But I wasn’t going out in Munich.
I was going to Venice!
And frankly, I couldn’t imagine anything more appropriate.
I boarded the coach, found my seat and settled in for the overnight journey.
A Passport, a Border and a Rather Pleasant Surprise
The journey itself wasn’t particularly memorable. It was dark, and there wasn’t much to see.
But I remember crossing the Austrian-Italian border at the Brenner Pass.
Back in 1990, border controls were still part of travelling around Europe.
Our coach stopped, and we were asked to hold up our passports.
That was it.
Nobody ordered us off the bus. Nobody searched our luggage. Nobody made us feel as though we’d committed a criminal offence simply by wanting to cross a border.
Coming from East Germany, where returning from a trip to Poland could involve rather unpleasant checks and interrogations, I found the whole experience almost astonishing.
So this is what travelling in the free world feels like.
A few moments later, we were moving again.
No drama. No fuss.
Quite refreshing, really.
Venice Before the Tourists Had Finished Their Breakfast
We arrived in Venice at around half past six or seven in the morning.
The coach dropped us off near the historic centre, and I wasted absolutely no time getting started.
I knew the city would eventually fill with tourists, so I wanted to enjoy as much of it as possible before the crowds arrived.
And what a wonderful decision that turned out to be.
Venice was still half asleep.
The morning light was beautiful, the streets were quiet, and I had the extraordinary feeling of wandering through a city that hadn’t quite woken up yet.
Naturally, Rondò Veneziano was back on my Walkman.
Yes, I was taking this Venetian soundtrack business rather seriously.
What fascinated me immediately was the complete absence of cars.
No traffic lights. No roaring engines. No ordinary city traffic.
Instead, there were canals, little bridges, narrow alleyways and buildings that looked as though they’d been standing there forever.
It felt like stepping back several centuries.
And I absolutely loved it.
Getting Lost Was Part of the Plan
I didn’t have a carefully prepared sightseeing itinerary.
Actually, I didn’t have much of a plan at all.
I knew roughly where the Rialto Bridge and St Mark’s Square were located, and I trusted my sense of direction to do the rest.
Instead of following the obvious tourist routes, I developed a rather simple strategy.
Whenever everyone else went one way, I went the other.
A narrow alley? Excellent.
A little passage that looked as though it might lead absolutely nowhere? Even better.
Sometimes I’d find myself standing in front of an alley so ridiculously narrow that I wondered whether it was intended for human beings at all.
Fortunately, I was considerably slimmer in those days.
Today, a few of those Venetian passages might require some careful planning. Or possibly a diet.
But that was the beauty of it.
Around every corner, there was something new: a tiny square, a peaceful canal, an old doorway or a glimpse of everyday Venetian life.
Shopkeepers were opening their businesses. Vegetable sellers were arranging their produce. Souvenir stalls were slowly coming to life.
I sometimes imagined the locals looking at me and thinking:
What’s this idiot doing here so early?
But that was precisely what I wanted.
I wasn’t interested only in the Venice that tourists came to see.
I wanted to experience the city before it had put on its tourist costume.
The Rialto Bridge Without a Thousand Elbows
Eventually, I reached the famous Rialto Bridge.
And believe it or not, I could actually walk across it without being pushed, squeezed or accidentally photographed by somebody else’s camera.
The souvenir shops were only just opening.
I stopped, admired the Grand Canal and enjoyed the remarkable luxury of having enough space to stand still.
Anyone who has visited the Rialto Bridge during the busiest hours will appreciate just how unusual that can be.
Later that day, things would look rather different.
But for now, Venice was being very generous to me.
And then I arrived at St Mark’s Square.
Marco Polo, the Adriatic and a Rather Emotional Moment
There I stood, surrounded by some of the most magnificent buildings I’d ever seen.
St Mark’s Basilica. The Campanile. The Doge’s Palace.
Buildings I’d previously known only from photographs were suddenly right in front of me.
And yes, Rondò Veneziano was still playing.
I thought about Marco Polo, the famous Venetian traveller who had set off towards distant lands centuries earlier.
And there I was, a young man who had grown up behind the Iron Curtain, standing in Marco Polo’s hometown.
My journey had been somewhat less adventurous, admittedly.
Marco Polo travelled to Asia.
I’d spent the night on a coach from Munich.
But we all have to start somewhere.
I walked down towards the waterfront and looked across the lagoon.
Beyond it lay the Adriatic Sea, part of that enormous Mediterranean world I’d dreamed about for so long.
I could smell the sea.
And somehow, that made the whole experience even more wonderful.
Only a few years earlier, a trip like this would have been almost unimaginable for me as an East German citizen. Now I’d bought a bus ticket, set off and found myself in Venice on a beautiful morning. I could simply be here because I wanted to be.
Venice Had Woken Up
By late morning, the main routes were becoming considerably busier. I disappeared into the side streets again before eventually making my way back towards the Doge’s Palace and St Mark’s Square.
The shops were open, the souvenir stalls were ready for business, and some places were already packed. Venice had definitely finished its breakfast.
I browsed in several shops and spent rather a long time admiring the Murano glass in one of them. I would happily have bought something large and beautiful.
There was just one small obstacle: I had 100 Deutsche Marks to spend, on top of the 56 for the bus. No credit card. What I had in my pocket was all I had.
So I had to be sensible. I was a little more economical in those days. But only a little.
A Few Masks That Stayed in the Family
I wasn’t going home completely empty-handed, though. On the Rialto Bridge, I bought a few of those typical Venetian masks. Bigger, more elaborate ones were beyond my budget, but one of the masks I chose was for my mother.
She kept them for decades. They were still hanging in her flat when she died in 2026. Today, they’re with my sister.
My fascination with Murano glass stayed with me too. Many years later, I found a valuable piece signed by a glass artist in a Japan-surplus shop in the Philippines. Of all places.
Sometimes, things you admired decades ago turn up again somewhere you would never have thought to look.
Venice on a Shoestring: Ten Hours Were Enough
What did I eat that day? I honestly can’t remember. Something, presumably. By the afternoon my legs were certainly feeling all those bridges and alleyways, and I was probably hungry as well.
I’d been on the move almost continuously since early morning. At around 4.30 pm, our coach set off for Munich again. Ten hours in Venice, and I’d made very good use of them.
My first foreign trip entirely on my own since arriving in the West had cost me 56 Deutsche Marks in bus fare and a modest amount of spending money. In return, I’d discovered a city I fell in love with almost immediately.
I already knew I wanted to come back.
Can you get to know Venice and fall in love with it in a single day? It happened to me. Completely.
Another day trip from Munich: exploring Salzburg.
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