With its historic buildings and beautiful canals, Venezia is one of the most famous attractions in Italy. This floating city is made up of a group of 117 small islands separated by canals and connected by bridges.
Do you want to visit Venice? Whether it's your first time or not, here are a few ideas and advice travel tours to Venice to help you get the most out of your visit e fully enjoy the city.
The best time to visit Venice
The first tip for visiting Venice is to choose your dates wisely of your trip. As in most tourist cities, the summer months and school holidays are the busiest. Weekends are also more popular than weekdays. If you have the chance, book your trip out of season to fully enjoy the magical atmosphere of Venice.
In summer the city is hot and crowded. To explore the historic area and the main attractions of Venice, you will have to deal with lots of people, you have to arm yourself with patience and queue up. In this period you will also find the higher prices for hotels, airplanes and trains.
Although less cold than other northern European cities winter temperatures of Venice can sometimes be quite low.
Spring is mild, but fresh sea breezes are felt. They could be attractions closed this time of year, so make sure your favorites are open before booking.
Yet there are huge benefits to visit Venice out of season. You have more space to stop and admire the splendid architecture and works of art from past centuries. Budget hotels will not be as crowded and it will be easy to find a room at a good price.
The autumn it's an excellent time to visit, but be aware that October through January you may encounter what the Venetians call High water. During this period some streets or alleys could get flooded, but the phenomenon is of interest to a few days of the year, in limited areas such as around Piazza San Marco and lasts just a couple of hours per day.
How to plan the day
The second step is plan your day to Venice. As a first-time visitor, you should visit St. Mark's Basilica, the Doge's Palace or admire the Rialto Bridge.
However, during the day it is better to visit other, less crowded areas of Venice, such as Cannaregio, Dorsoduro o San Polo e Santa Croce. When the cruise passengers and groups leave the city, you will be able to visit the main attractions. For example, you can visit the Ducal Palace and the Correr Museum until 23pm (Friday and Saturday, from May to October) thanks to the “Moonlight Museums” initiative.
Book a hotel near a water taxi stop
We highly recommend staying at least two nights in Venice and booking one hotel near a water taxi stop. Otherwise it will not be easy to drag your luggage very far in Venice. Therefore travel light if you don't want your arrival to ruin your whole trip.
You can stay atHotel Palazzo Vitturi, for example, which is a 5-minute walk from both Rialto and San Marco water taxi stops. Or to the Palazzetto Pisani Grand Canal, a sixteenth-century building just a 3-minute walk from the Accademia vaporetto stop.
- Find out more about where to sleep in Venice
Unfortunately, many bridges don't have a ramp, so if you're on one chair a wheels, you will have to choose your place to stay and plan your routes very well in advance with these accessible route maps. On a positive note, Gondolas4all has created a gondola accessible with a wheelchair.
Also consider researching the nearby mainland of Teacher, a place sometimes devoid of the aesthetic qualities of Venice. However, the rooms have lower prices and Venice is easily and quickly accessible by train and bus.
Get on a boat to visit Venice from the water
Venice was built to be seen from the water. The Grand Canal, the most beautiful "street" in Venice, can only be seen from the water; the facade of the palaces is on the water. Even the Ducal Palace it was built to be seen from the water, in fact its façade overlooking the lagoon was built 100 years before the one overlooking the “Piazzetta” and the Marciana Library.
This is why our second tip is to absolutely see Venice by boat, be it a gondola, a private boat, a kayak, a taxi or a vaporetto.
Passes are a must
Although Venice is known for its waterways, you will spend a lot of time walking on the mainland. For water transport, on the other hand, you can use the vaporettos. They are used by tourists and business people in the same way that a subway works in other cities.
Un ticket for the ferry one way costs 7 euros and is valid for 60 minutes. Even more useful and convenient are the various pass which can be used for multiple trips and are valid on both vaporetto and busses in the city of Venice. The ticket valid for 24 hours costs 20 euros. There are also 48 hour pass for 30 euros, 72 hour pass for 40 euros and a seven-day pass for 60 euros.
Eat main meals outside the tourist areas
The outdoor bars in Piazza San Marco they are a pleasant place to have a cold drink and take in the beautiful views of the city. But you should think twice before eating in the tourist areas, especially in Venice.
Prices are very high - to be fair, the owners in these places have to pay much higher costs than their counterparts outside the iconic city centers. But they also take advantage of tourists who pay the bill without objection.
A few vaporetto stops from Piazza San Marco is the Accademia, which leads to the Dorsoduro section of the city. Here you will find lower prices and fewer tourists.
Head to the Out Islands
Some of the most photogenic places in Venice are on the outer islands. Get on board a motorboat, visit Murano, Burano and Torcello in one day and discover the fantastic history of the northern part of the Venice lagoon. For those looking for a sandy beach, you can go to the Lido of Venice!
Start or end a cruise here
Venice is a popular cruise stop and many of the itineraries start or end here. It is a great place to combine a tour of Italy with a cruise on the Adriatic in Croatia, Greece o Turkey.
If your cruise ship begins its itinerary here, you will benefit from a floating hotel room and meals on board the ship. It is a great way to avoid the high prices in Venice and yet visit this beautiful city.
Wake up early
If you wake up early in the morning to visit Venice you will have the city all to yourself - even the famous Piazza San Marco can be empty! It will be a great way to take great pictures. The same places at peak times become incredibly crowded and noisy.
Visit the cities near Venice
When you finish visiting Venice, consider visiting the other cities in the region as well. Trieste, Padova e Verona they are a short train ride away. In the case of a visit to Padua, it is possible to travel by train dozens of times a day in just 30 minutes of travel and for € 10 or less.
More, Milan is about three hours by train, the Lake Como about four hours and Firenze just two hours by train from Venice. Also consider bus lines which are sometimes cheaper and faster than trains.
Other tips on how to visit Venice
A very useful piece of information we can give you is about… the toilets! Public toilets they are super clean but cost 1,50€ and they are not always the easiest to find. So our advice, when you need a bathroom, is to have a coffee in a cafe: for the same price as a public toilet, you will enjoy a good coffee and access the bathroom.
Don't wear high heels. Trust me, Venice is a pedestrian city, and as such you will have to walk and walk again. Even if you are planning to board a vaporetto, you will have to walk enough to reach the vaporetto stops.
Bring a refillable water bottle with you. The water of the fountains in Venice is drinkable and of excellent quality. Almost every main square has a working fountain where you can refill your bottle.
When you see something interesting (a nice building, a shop, a restaurant) and you think “I'll be back later” - you will never find it again. By the end of the day, you will have crossed so many small streets, that you will no longer remember where you saw it. You should visit it immediately or mark it on your map.
Do you like this article? Then share it with your friends on social channels. If you have other useful tips for your trip to the Serenissima, don't miss the opportunity to write them in the comments section. We wish you a pleasant journey!
