Our hotel, luxury personified, offered us a free one way tour to Murano glass works in a water taxi.

Why oh why did I not look more closely at the map? There was an enormous expanse of sea to cross and, as if you didn’t know, I don’t like water. Or boats. Or anything really that isn’t based on dry and very firm land.

But I was tempted, and succumbed. This morning at eleven o’clock our water taxi arrived; two strong men, the water boatman and my husband heaved me in and we set off. The taxi was a regular bone shaker. Old and rather elegant, it was incredibly noisy as it rattled along. I wasn’t too bothered until we came to the open lagoon. It gained speed. And noise. Every passing wave caused it to roll very unpleasantly. There were two other passengers with us. One admitted she was scared too. But the tears were not rolling down her face and she didn’t emit screams of terror every five minutes. And then looking at the back of the boat we could no longer see the wake in the water. Just smoke. Or steam. Or whatever. The boat stopped. In the middle of the lagoon. Nothing to worry about, said the captain. I did not believe him. A few long minutes later he started up and we entered some calm water with a visible bank at the side. Hurrah, I thought. We’re here. Wasn’t I brave?

But no. We were just waiting for a rescue boat. The word Titanic sprang to mind, I’m ashamed to say. My heart and stomach fell when it arrived. Slightly newer. But faster and even noisier. And then we had to cross the lagoon again to take the new boat’s original passengers to their destination and then fast on to Murano. It felt like going at high speed in an oxcart on a cobbled road. Not nice at all. Not exciting in a nice way.

I was very embarrassed, once we arrived, at my very uncool, uncalm and uncollected behaviour.

But luckily I was distracted for the next couple of hours by seeing men blowing glass and looking at the artefacts that had been made previously.

I can appreciate the skill involved. And the creativity. But not really the final products. I love some artistic glassware. Unfortunately not to be found in Murano.

We found a lovely restaurant for lunch and then took the vaporetto -much calmer and in the end quicker than our disastrous water taxis – back to our hotel.

As I was gripping onto Jacek for dear life he managed to reassure me that this was an adventure I could write about. I’m glad I haven’t proved him wrong.