Venice
We’ve read some mixed reviews on whether or not to visit Venice. We really enjoyed it and think it’s worth it. If you don’t want huge crowds then don’t go during the summer, especially in July or August. By mid-September, there were still a good number of tourists but it wasn’t overcrowded.
September 11, 2022 (T)
Our train to Venice was direct, so after a quick ride from Verona we exited the train station and found the “bus”. By bus, I mean boat! Almost all transportation in Venice is by boat. We saw an occasional delivery van here and there, but you won’t find buses or taxis in car form. As someone who gets nervous in traffic, I really appreciated this aspect of Venice.
We road the boat bus for about 45 minutes before our stop - a great introduction to Venice. The waters are green, the buildings are old, beautiful, and clean, the canals are lined with gondolas, water taxis, bus boats, and other fancy boats, the sun was shining. We could see the appeal to Venice right away.
We arrived at our stop and walked about 10 minutes to our accommodation, Guesthouse Ca dell’Angelo, which was pretty close to San Marco Square. It’s in a popular area but is tucked away and up a few flights of stairs so it’s quiet. We would recommend staying here if stairs aren’t an issue. We checked in, gathered some pro-tips, and relaxed for a bit.
The pro-tips:
1. Gondola rides are expensive! They run starting at 80 euros for 30 minutes. If you just want a brief experience and to snap a photo, look for gondolas that take you across a canal. It’ll cost about 2 euros instead. Or, if you just want to see Venice by water, take the boat bus. You can go circle the whole city for 9 euros.
2. Everyone gets lost when they’re walking around. Using Google Maps is recommended.
3. The best way to see Venice is to walk around.
4. You can go up the tower in San Marco Square for a nice view, but if you want to avoid crowds and still get a nice view, go to Church of San Giorgio Maggiore instead. (We, unfortunately, didn’t fit this in the itinerary)
5. Murano Island is an island closeby known for glass blowing. If you don’t have time to see it, don’t worry, Murano glass is everywhere in Venice.
We made our way to dinner at Trattoria Alla Madonna, a longstanding restaurant in Venice. We were not disappointed.
After dinner, we walked around and enjoyed looking over the canals at night.
September 12, 2022 (T)
We decided to spend the majority of the day wandering around, which is what we did after eating breakfast. Venice isn’t very big. You can walk from one side to the other in 45 minutes to an hour. One place we wanted to see was the Jewish Quarter. We found it after we stumbled around for about a few hours, stopping here and there for nice pictures and for lunch.
We were lucky to find a walking tour where we could eavesdrop to learn a little more about the area. We didn’t stay too long though because we didn’t want to really join the tour group. In the few minutes we waited by them, we learned the buildings in this area have many more floors than other parts of town because people were crammed together during World War 2. It may not have been something I would’ve noticed on my own. We continued walking on and found a memorial of the place Jews were taken away. The barbed wire from World War 2 was still on top of the brick wall, a somber artifact of the time when tragedies occurred there. We stood in silence for a little while, then left the Jewish Quarter and continued our walk.
A few blocks away, we found what we looked for in every Italian city, gelato! Dark chocolate gelato to be specific. I always like to pair it with one other flavor and today’s flavor was pistachio. It was delightful. We walked for maybe another hour and decided to visit San Marco Square. It was impressive but there were quite a few people there. We snapped a few shots and called it a day.
September 13, 2022 (T)
Instead of taking the boat bus this time, we decided to walk all the way to the train station, which actually took about the same amount of time. We woke up early, ate breakfast, checked out, then mozied our way to the station and boarded our direct train to Florence.
We spent one full day in Venice but think 2 full days would be better.