After spending a couple of days at my parents‘ place in Austria and attending a friend’s wedding, I took a flight to Venice, a city that I’d been wanting to visit for a long time. It was early September, so still peak tourist season and the little alleys of Venice for buzzing with people. But…I didn’t mind. Venice was so beautiful that it didn’t matter.

For my first day, weather was forecasted rainy so I booked tickets for St Marcus Cathedral and the Dodge Palace. I walked from my cute canal guesthouse to St Marcus Square and immediately fell in love with the city. Just so crazy how they built it all on stilts!

St Marcus Square is of course stunning and I was happy that I had paid a little extra for the online ticket to see the cathedral as the line to buy tickets on the spot was long. The cathedral itself was pretty nice, but what I enjoyed most was the view from the terrace. Contrary to what the weather forecast had said, the sun was shining all day long which was great in that case.

I had left the right amount of time between my booking for the cathedral and the Dodge’s Palace afterwards. I didn’t anticipate being rather tired though as I’d had a very early wake-up in Vienna. So while the Palace was really, really beautiful, I was a bit too tired to read all the information. So I mostly just walked through the rooms in awe, telling myself I’d read up on the history later…

The ticket for the Dodge Palace (unfortunately) included a visit of Museo Correr. Unfortunately, because I wasn’t originally interested in visiting this museum and I was super tired already. However, my fomo didn’t let me skip it, so I hurried from the palace to the museum. I walked through it rather quickly, just having a glance at things but honestly being kind of brain dead by then.

Next day, after getting some work done, I set out to explore some more of Venice and hopped onto one of the public boats running on the canals. I bought a 72h ticket which probably wouldn’t have been worth it, but as I realized that, I made sure to get my money’s worth and really took lots of ferries over the next few days! It is anyway such a great way of seeing Venice, without having to pay for an expensive gondola ride.

After a few days in Venice, I took a train to Rovereto and then a bus onward to Arco. It was a long journey, but once I arrived in Arco, I immediately felt happy and stunned by the beauty of the region. Definitely the right decision!

I spent about 1.5 weeks in Arco – on holiday, so actually being able to switch off completely which was really good for me for once again. As a digital nomad, I might live in beautiful places and organise my work in a way to have more free time to enjoy the surroundings. However, often I feel that I’m always „on duty“ as I’ll still get notifications on my phone, see emails coming in etc. So it was nice to have this time off in such a beautiful place full of outdoor activities!

The main reason I came to Arco was to go rock climbing. I went out for 5 days, mainly to crags for single pitch sport and also climbed one multi-pitch in the end. Overall, I was a bit disappointed and shocked by how my climbing shape had gone down over the past couple of months. I was only able to climb super easy grades and had to bail on some routes that used to be well within my limits. I’ll definitely not make the mistake again to not go climbing frequently enough and let all my efforts from the past go to waste… Don’t get me wrong, I still had a great time in Arco. My favourite day was actually my last one when I first climbed a (very easy) multi-pitch with Hérnan from Argentina and we then got invited to join Piotrek for some cragging at Belvedere in the late afternoon. A perfect way to end my time in Arco!

The rest of the days were filled with many other outdoor activities: I did my first solo via ferrata (delle Amicizia) which involved a long hike before and after and consisted of several long ladders with big exposures. Something that I’m not usually that good at – but I managed to keep it together and was happy to have done it!

In my time in Arco, I did two other (mini) via ferratas, walked from Arco to Lake Garda, explored Riva del Garda and Arco – both cute towns and I also joined a windsurfing trial lesson and went canyoning in Rio Nero (my first time!). I enjoyed windsurfing much more than expected and can definitely imagine doing that again. As for canyoning, I’ll have to see. It was loads of fun, but I’m really not a fan of jumping into water from anywhere higher than 1m. On this tour, you weren’t required to jump, you’d just get lowered on most spots in any case and there were only 2 places where those who wanted to, could jump. Not sure if that’s a usual or not, hence I’ll have to see whether I’ll do it again once to opportunity comes up!

Overall, I totally fell in love with Arco and its surroundings. There is just sooo much to do. Climbing, hiking, via ferratas. All sorts of water sports. Mountain biking. Canyoning. And the towns themselves are cute and nice to walk around in as well! I’d love to come back here and explore the Southern part of the lake region as well. Without a car, it was sometimes a bit tricky to get around, so I sticked to the stuff close to Arco – which anyway was more than enough for the time I had. Arco (and surroundings) is one of the first places where I could imagine getting settled eventually. I left part of my heart in Arco and will definitely be back, one or the other way…