Venice is one of the beautiful city on the planet you should visit once in your lifetime. Here’s a most imperative rundown of important Venice travel tips you must know before planning your trip. As it can be tricky to visit Venice.
The city is world-acclaimed, loaded with history and overflowing with the romance. Presumably its appeal and style will spellbound you.
Bridge of Sighs
1. Be ready to go through the crowd while visiting Venice
Venice is loaded with things to see and do and praised for being a standout amongst the most romantic places on the planet. The city is likewise known for being stuffed with traveler, so be ready for it. Particularly around well-known must see places like the Rialto Bridge, St. Mark’s square, Piazza San Marco. There’s just no getting away from the big tourist groups on these places.
Venice crowd
Venice Travel Tips 1 – surviving the crowd
Best tip is to wake up early, and stay awake till late. In these hours (before 7 am and after 12 pm), there will be no crowds and the city feels peaceful and relaxed. I would highly recommend to explore the city in the evening. Evening is likewise extraordinary for taking pictures, see my Venice by night depiction here.
Is this view of Venice in the evening not breathtaking?
Venice in the night
2. Acqua Alta/Travel amid low season
Spring and summer in Venice are the seasons with more sightseers, higher temperatures and lots of mosquitoes. Fall is a superior time to visit Venice, in spite of the fact that there’s a presence of infamous acqua alta (high water and flooding). Below is the image of Doge‘s Palace showing early morning acqua alta. Shadow of the monument in the water and fewer people make it more beautiful.
Bad side of the acqua alta: Water is extremely filthy since it frequently accompanies rubbish and different flotsam and jetsam gliding. Brimming with microorganisms, it’s most likely not something you need to dip your body in! In addition, city starts to stink.
Keep in mind that Acqua alta is not a risky wonder. It’s just an inconvenience, which can be avoided easily by following these tips!
Venice Travel Tips 2 – how to survive acqua alta
Make sure that you carry your elastic rain long boots with you and don’t freeze, that is the only way it goes in Venice. You can also check the acqua alta forecast online. If you would like to avoid acqua alta than Winter can likewise be an awesome time for investigating Venice. Venice has its own charm in the winter if you can survive solidifying cool and nippy breezes.
Isn’t it an experience? It was a great experience for me to see how city handle it everyday
Doge’s Palace- Venice
3. Fantasy of Gondola Ride in Venice it can cost you a fortune
Its a “wow time” now – the gondolas of Venice. Its a ritual to take a gondola ride if you travel to Venice.
Iconic symbol of this romantic city – gondola that take lovers through many beautiful canals?
However, you can not deny the fact that these gondola rides can also be expensive. One of the greatest vacationers traps in Venice are the gondola rides along the waterways. In spite of the high costs and dangers of being ripped off financially, it is still enormous fun.
Don’t let it give you a financial hiccups
Gondola
Whats the official cost of Gondola?
Afternoon: 80 euro for 40 minutes.
Evening (after 7 pm): 100 euro for 40 minutes.
These are the official rates. It is normal for gondoliers to raise the cost at anytime. Be aware that serenade cost is not included in the gondola cost. You need to pay additional cost to have this musical and magical ride. Try to fix the cost of the serenade before you get in the gondola.
Gondola
Venice Travel Tips 3 – getting cheaper alternatives of Gondola
Rowing in Venice: I am not sure how many of you are aware about rowing in Venice. You can make your visit in Venice little bit more fun and adventurous if you like/try rowing. You can book a Row like a Venetian-workshop. Book yourself a tour through www.rowvenice.org. It will cost around 40 euros and lasts for 90-minutes. Isn’t it fun? I will definitely try it in my next visit.
Sharing a Gondola ride: Most economical option is to share a gondola ride with other tourist. You can enjoy the ride in almost half price (30 euros for 20 minutes). Of course, the feeling will not be the same. However, you can experience it other than skipping the whole idea of taking the ride. I did not experienced shared gondola ride by myself. However, I would like to hear about your experiences.
Vaporetti (Waterbus of Venice): Vaporetti is a public transport in Venice. You should be aware that it is not gondola but a boat, who takes passenger from one stop to another. However, the sights from the water are the same.
There are several ticket options available for Vaporetti: A standard ticket costs: 7 euro, 12-hours: 18 euros. You can buy from single journey to 7 days-pass. You should way how much you are planning to travel using water bus and then take your ticket accordingly. As Venice is a walking city. I did explore the whole city by foot.
4. Food in Venice
Most of the tourist doesn’t know that the restaurants at St Mark’s square are overpriced. However, if you plan to have your most expensive meal and drink then that’s the place. You should definitely visit the most famous cafe’s and bars like: Gran Caffè Quadri, Café Florian, Harry‘s Bar, bacaroor osteriais, Caffè La Calcina. You can definitely enjoy a cup of Viennese coffee or a glass of wine with a snack (Venetian style tapas). Keep in mind that you have to pay extra to sit down anywhere, therefore, enjoy your drink at the bar.
St Mark’s square-venice
Venice Travel Tips 4 – How to save money on food
If you are planning to have a meal. It will be great to go somewhere less touristic and small restaurants. If you want to taste the real Venice Food- take a Venice Food Tour. There are many different types of tours available where you can take a tour to street food, Rialto food markets, a lot of tastings and some fine wines involved. You can also take a cooking lesson in these tours if you are interested. The major plus point- you will know more about the culture and food of the city.
Take Food tour and make your tour more interesting, tasty, cheaper and fun
Venice alleys
5. Venice is a walking city have fun by getting lost again and again!
Venice is known as a walking city. Best part of the city is that it doesn’t have streets and roads. It is made up of bridges, canals, alleys and very few squares. Be ready to walk and explore this beautiful city.
Best way to discover Venice- Get lost
Beauty of Venice
Why should you get lost?
- Take you away from the crowd: St. Mark’s Square, Rialto Bridge are always jam-packed. You should visit others areas which are way less crowded and way more charming.
- Let you see how the locals live: Me and my husband got lost. There was one point when we did not find any gondola, or souvenir shop. We were amused by seeing normal houses with laundry hanging outside the windows.
Rialto Bridge
Venice Travel Tip 5- when you are lost: it is most certain
I would highly recommend you to keep a good city map handy and prepare in advance where you want to go. It will be very useful for you if you notice some landmarks and shops near to hotel. It will help you to get back to your hotel when you are fully lost. I remember I got lost several times after having a great map in my hand as all the alleys look the same.
I am sure you must be thinking of using GPS on your smart phone. GPS on your smartphone in Venice will be as puzzled as you. Do not panic and try to find your way and explore beautiful alleys, bridges and squares :).
6. Venetian mask- Best Souvenir from Venice
In old times, Venetian masks were used to protect the identity of their wearer’s during promiscuous or decadent activities. Nowadays, it is majorly wore in carnivals. The most impressive souvenir which you can take back home from your Venice trip is a “Venetian mask”.
Venitian Mask
Venice Travel Tips 6- buying Venetian Mask
There are plenty of shops provide masks in the city. I would say that you should stay careful before buying and check whether masks been made in China or Venice.
Make sure you buy a genuine Venetian mask.
Mask Hunting: Dorsoduro district is the best place to find a beautiful piece. You can also visit most popular shop ‘Ca’Macan. Tom cruise mask from the movie Eyes Wide Shut was designed and bought from here.
7. Public Toilets in Venice
Venice is not a cheap place, not even for public toilets. It will cost around 3 euro.
Venice Travel Tips 7- for public toilets:
Do you know that you can get a discount to visit public toilets in Venice? Surprised! Me too – I found it most funny and useless discount card I came across so far in Venice. You can get a card from the website www.veneziaunica.it.
Don’t Waste your money on toilet discount card
I always take a small break in the cafe and use their services. There is nothing new in it ;). You can also use the same website to find transport, museums and city passes.
Little Extra- More Venice Travel Tips
Book a Hotel Near to a Water Taxi Stop, Head to the Outer Islands, take Mosquito Repellent…….
PC: Shyam Gaurav Ramesh
These are my tips. Have you been to Venice? What are your Venice travel tips? Have I missed something? Looking forward to hear all your story. I am waiting for you in comment section!
St Mark’s Campanile