10 Travel tips for Venice
Hello fellow budget hunters,
Today I am talking about my favourite Italian city that I visited – the famous city of canals and gondolas!
I loved Venice. I went and had no idea what to expect, in my head there would be a few canals (like Birmingham) but would still be a city.
Boy was I wrong!
*I’d just like to point out that all of these were things I noticed and definitely not all to be taken as fact! *
Venice was so beautiful and we learnt a few things that would be helpful for someone heading to the city of Romance.
Tip number 1 –
Don’t queue for St Mark’s tower for the view. Get a water is across to San Giorgio and go up the bell tower there. It is cheaper, had no queue in JULY and gives you a sweeping view across the traditional Venice skyline!
Tip number 2 –
Use the locals Gondola for the Grand Canal. I wrote a long post about why I didn’t ride the gondolas in Venice, but if you still want to experience them. Go for the 2 euro crossing and stand like the locals!
Tip number 3 –
Do not stay on a boat. This is probably normal for 99% of travellers. However we saw this unusual listing on Airbnb and decided it would be great fun to stay on a boat as it would be like camping! If the ground rocks while you’re camping, I’d get out of there quickly!
We ended up feeling like we were moving even on solid ground. It was definitely a nightmare!
Tip number 4 –
Lido is nice if you like residential areas but go to Burano instead on the waterbus. I am so sad that we didn’t make it to Burano, as it’s so beautiful and colourful! Instead we picked Lido and that was an island with cars (I know!) It had a nice beach and we strolled around a little bit before heading back to Venice.
Tip number 5 –
It is difficult to get to the airport or mainland after 9pm and before 6am. We had a flight at 5.50am so we ended up going to the airport on the bus and sleeping there.
It’s been pointed out that we could have got a water taxi but we were on a very tight budget!
Tip number 6 –
You can sleep in arrivals at Venice Marco Polo airport. Just don’t make a bed by the water feature as you will need the loo every 5 minutes!
Also security was the slowest I’ve ever been through and we were in a queue of about 10 people!
Tip number 7 –
The Glass museums/cathedral and restaurants all have toilets. One of the most shocking things I found was the only central public toilets we found cost €1.50 to use. Which is ridiculous price! So we used various toilets in different locations or even got the waterbus back for a toilet trip!
Tip number 8 –
Buy a waterbus ticket if you want to save your legs and get great photos (not always necessary if you’re central)! We used our ticket a lot, even though at first we hated how expensive it was, we really go our money’s worth and I got some really awesome photos from it without people obscuring the view!
I think it was 28€ at the time for 72 hours. Ours was useful as we stayed near St Elena, but if you are very central then it may not be a good purchase!
Tip number 9 –
Deet was a lifesaver for us. With all that water around and some of it is slightly stagnant so you have a lot of mosquitoes! We had bought some repellent after being bitten in Bologna and although it gassed us and the little boat, we only got a couple of bites not hundreds!
Tip number 10 –
Take pictures, enjoy the experience and just have fun. I loved Venice, I took hundreds of pictures and really think in order to enjoy Venice, you need to embrace every aspect of it! It’s not great if you don’t have sea legs and are afraid of water. Just enjoy how less rushed every it is as everything takes so much longer travelling by water.
But also enjoy the moment, you don’t need to live through social media… take everything in while you’re there, not afterwards.
Let me know if you have any other suggestions. I recommend visiting the summer as the weather was great, but it can be crowecr. This year in the winter it even snowed!
Be aware as Venice can flood and St Mark’s square becomes somewhere you need Wellington boots to wade through. (My grandparents had to do that) but apparently there is a warning system and it happens maybe twice a year!
I hope you enjoyed this,
Until next time,
The Great Ambini
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