FAMILY camping holidays of my childhood featured trips to communal loos, lugging bags of shopping for miles and splashing about in a small, kidney-shaped swimming pool.

So I was shocked, to say the very least, at how times have changed when I spent a week soaking up the late summer sun at the Italian campsite Marina di Venezia.

The sprawling 50-year-old plot – said to be one of the largest in Europe – is a world away from wet weekends cowering in tents in English fields.

The facilities at Marina di Venezia are impressive. It has numerous bars and restaurants, leisure amenities like squash courts and a crazy golf course, as well as shops selling everything from gifts to groceries.

The pool area is vast, with no fewer than six pools of varying shapes and sizes, including an Olympic-sized main pool where an energetic member of staff led daily aqua-aerobics sessions, several children's pools and one with a wave machine and three slides.

It also has its own section of beach which we found to be clean and never crowded, although tourists were constantly pestered by vendors flogging everything from towels to jewellery, kites and even massages.

We stayed in a static caravan that was just a short walk away from all the main facilities on the site. Billed as a six-berth with a double bed, three bunks and a sofa-bed, we found it cosy enough with just three of us and wondered how the larger families nearby were managing.

Italy can be expensive but on a campsite like Marina di Venezia, where both the restaurants and supermarket were very reasonably priced, you can keep costs down.

Alcohol was our priciest treat, as the site bars were frighteningly expensive. A tiny glass of beer – less than half a pint – came to about three euros and, with the bars closing at about 10.30pm, it hardly made for a raucous night out.

The site is also a stone's throw from Venice and buses run directly from Marina di Venezia to Punta Sabbioni during the summer months, where regular ferries take tourists and commuters into the city.

With its canals and waterways replacing roads, and tiny cobbled streets winding around tall old buildings, Venice is one of the most enchanting cities I have ever seen.

The restaurants and bars are expensive but even on a tight budget you can get a lot of enjoyment simply by spending a day admiring the architecture, pottering around the streets, browsing the many street stalls and eating delicious Italian ice cream.

The way of life at Marina di Venezia seemed to be early to rise and early to bed and there was little in the way of nightlife after about 10pm.

If you stayed up past 11.30pm, a man appeared on a lamp-lit bicycle, weaving crazily through the trees to tell any hapless guests who were still outside at their tables outside to "sshh!"

But all-in-all the Marina di Venezia made for a safe, relaxing and family-friendly break, with the bonus of Venice on its doorstep.