Venice is a beautiful, unique city that deserves its place on so many bucket lists. Its architecture, canals and history are captivating, and exploring this bustling city is a unique experience.
However, that popularity comes at a cost: Venice is busy—seriously busy. Tourism has become its only viable industry, with most of the city’s 40,000 residents working in the sector. On any given day, up to 80,000 visitors arrive to admire its majestic canals and sights, with most heading to the same attractions.
Is it possible to be in Venice and get an authentic experience? I think so. Many of these tourists do not stay in Venice, they visit for a day trip or off cruise ships. By staying within Venice, you allow yourselves the experience of a quieter city, early in the morning and in the evening it’s a different place.
I do recommend doing the main attractions, if you haven’t seen inside Basilico San Marco or The Bell Tower or Palazzo Ducale, you must. You will not regret it, even though everyone in Venice is also there. Buy your tickets in advance and choose a day early on in your trip. We lucked in with a Monday being our first day, Monday is usually the quietest day of the week, with minimal cruise ships visiting. I found there were a mind-boggling number of companies offering different ticket options or jump the queue style tickets. In the end I booked with the official website for Basilico San Marco, finding it the best value for money.
For Palazzo Ducale (Doges Palace) we bought tickets on the door but went late in the afternoon. It’s open until 6pm. So, it’s not always essential to get your tickets in advance but I would recommend it.
After the attractions on Piazza San Marco, we found ourselves focused on seeing the art in Venice. During our visit the city was hosting its biennial art festival, founded in 1895, The Venice Biennial is widely regarded as one of the world’s most significant contemporary art events, drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors between April and November, showcasing installations, sculpture, performance, and multimedia works from around the globe. There was so much art, we couldn’t have seen it all! When the biennial is not on, there is still a vast array of art in Venice. We enjoyed the Peggy Guggenheim, which has some Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Dali and plenty more. For the art, we managed to buy tickets on the day as and when we rocked up at the door.
The main historical city island of Venice is around 2.5 miles from one side to the other, which sounds compact. Easy to walk you might say? However it is made up of hundreds of small winding alleys and streets, that meet 472 bridges that you have to use because the roads are made of water, so you can’t just cross over wherever you like, walking anywhere is not quick, especially with the 80,000 tourists in the way.
The best way to get about is on the water. The Vaporetto is a water bus, Venice’s public transport. The Vaporetto come regularly and go to all the key locations. Including the Lido, Murano and Burano. My favourite route, riding from one end of the Grand Canal to the other on route 1 or route 2. We attempted to visit Venice on a budget, it is possible, but some things cost a great deal more than we realised. The Vaporetto being one of them. We opted for the multi day 72-hour pass which was €45 each, children over 6 also pay this price. This didn’t cover our whole trip; we ended up buying an additional 48hour pass on top of this for €35 each. So, we spent €240 just on the Bus for our trip! Saying that, the Vaporetto is not your average bus it is an experience. Having the ability to hop on and off is essential when sight seeing, a single ride ticket on the Vaporetto is €9.50 so the multi hour passes are better value. The Vaporetto gets busy especially if travelling in rush hour, imagine the London tube but you’re on a boat, crushed in. A couple of times we had to wait for the next boat because it was completely full! In the mornings we had a better deal, as our hotel was at the very start of the line, so we boarded an empty boat, got the best seats and enjoyed the view.
If you’re not aware or don’t mind Venice can very easily rip you off. Many cafes or restaurants have a cover charge. The worst being at Palazzo San Marco, where they tried to charge us €7 each just for sitting down, then the menu stated €15 for a coke, then on top of this there was a 12.5% service charge. We walked away but had a similar experience at a restaurant near Rialto Bridge, so always ask, is there a cover charge? and is there a service charge? Away from the main tourist sights you can get a huge slice of pizza and a soft drink for €7 and a sit-down meal with alcohol in a nice restaurant for the three of us cost around €85. It is very possible to eat out on a budget but please ask questions about cover and service charges before you order.
The areas I felt were most authentic were the area near Academia Vaporetto stop and Cannaregio, get off at the Casino stop on the Grand Canal for this neighbourhood. We enjoyed lovely meals in these areas, particularly at award winning ‘Cantina’, experienced authentic Osteria bars and far less tourists. Our nicest Osteria visit was in the Academia area, ‘Alsquero’ where we enjoyed Limoncello and sat on the canal wall listening to church bells, as Gondolas passed us.
Certainly, it is worth getting off the main island of Venice. We explored Murano, visiting a glass factory with a glass making demonstration. Then Burano, seeing lace making and spent a few hours exploring the gorgeous, coloured streets and canals. Burano has an old worldly charm, super friendly people, great restaurants, bakeries and lots of shops for mooching about. We did a tour, which I’m not going to recommend. In the end we abandoned the tour and just went off on our own, hopping the vaporetto back. Both Islands are easily reached by Vaporetto and included in you multi day tickets.
I’d recommend a stop at Lido also, here we spent the afternoon on the beach, paddled in the sea, ate ice-cream at ‘Magiche Voglie’, drank Aperol spritz in the sun and truly escaped the crowds.
(If it’s peak summer, note Lido would be packed, as it’s the only beach for all of Venice city).
In Venice it’s basically compulsory to ride a Gondola at some point, at least this is what you tell your husband. I kept hunting for the best deal on a Gondola and eventually googled it. It turns out all Gondolas in Venice are regulated and have the same rates. Regardless of location, €90 for half an hour. We opted to board in one of the quieter canal areas and were treated to a peaceful tour of a residential neighboured. It was gorgeous. If you are priced out of the €90, you can take a Gondola bus at several points across the Grand canal. This is good fun; they pile 12 of you into the Gondola and two Gondoliers steer you across the Grand Canal to the other side. It only takes a few minutes; you spend the whole time thinking you’ll fall in as your perch on the narrow side wall of the gondola, while Vaporetto’s and water taxi’s zoom past you. And they only charge you €2 each for this experience. However, this experience is a million miles away from an actual Gondola ride.
If you’re on a budget finding a decent hotel in Venice can be tricky. In my opinion there are a good deal of dated, tired 2- and 3-star hotels in Venice. Then hotels that are rated 4 or 5 stars really come at a price. Because of this most people tend to stay in Venice for only a couple of nights. Personally, I prefer to do a city break for 4 or 5 nights, because I travel with a child and we pace out our sightseeing days. Plus, I always think it’s better value to go somewhere and feel you’ve seen everything, than having to pay for a whole other trip to come back and do the bits you’ve missed. I managed to achieve my 5 nights by staying a little bit out of town, on Tronchetto. Tronchetto is a man made service island, built adjacent to Venice’s mainland. The best way to describe it, is a Venice’s park and ride! Not glamourous, however there are some brand-new purpose-built hotels here. We stayed at the very well-equipped 3-star Hampton by Hilton, in a triple room, with a huge buffet breakfast included. And like I said before it is the first stop on the Vaporetto, so we were on the Grand Canal within 10 minutes. The Hampton is shiny new has great customer service, bar, restaurant and a shop open 24/7. We really enjoyed the soft pillows and comfy bed as well as the large walk-in shower.
Generally, I wouldn’t recommend travelling to Venice with very small children. Of course, there are children in Venice, but I’d say under 6years you are going to have your hands full. There is water everywhere, canals without walls, no railings, large crowds and my daughter would like to point out a distinct lack of playgrounds. Venice is absolutely not pram/buggy friendly. Every bridge over a canal has steps, the Vaporetto are very busy, steering a pram onto a boat is not for the faint hearted. If you have a young baby that you’re happy to carry in a sling all day, you’ll be fine.
Equally I will say that Venice is not great for wheelchair uses. Again, for the same reason, there are steps everywhere and many boat transfers. I will say I did see wheelchair users and the Vaporetto staff were always exceptionally helpful, prioritising access and assisting on and off the boat. So, it’s not impossible but a great deal of thought would need to go into planning a Venice trip.
Getting to and from the airport, online also showed a boggling number of options. In the end I pre-booked the ATVO coach shuttle. This dropped us at Piazzale Roma, where we then jumped on the people mover monorail to Tronchetto. For other hotels you can easily connect to the Vaporetto from Piazzale Roma.
I feel I’ve focused on the negative but hopefully this will help you have a more positive trip when you visit Venice. We genuinely enjoyed our time in Venice and were stunned by its beautiful buildings, history and charmed by the boats and way of life. The combination of great food, culture and art really made for a great city break. This was my third trip to the city, and I feel it won’t be my last.
