It was natural to choose Venice this summer, as my husband and I were looking for a short holiday. Actually, I bought tickets to Milano Bergamo Airoport before we even started to plan anything. So, after buying plane tickets, we googled how far the airport is from the centre of Milan and we were surprised — actually, the airport is situated right between the cities of Milan and Venice. That’s why we decided to visit Venice! We had four full days in Venice as we booked in advance a train in the early morning, to be sure that we could spend most of the time in Venice. Four days are not that much, but definitely enough to catch the feel of a city and see some highlights (don’t plan too much, Venice is a place to return again and again!).
The trip was at the beginning of July, I guess, it’s the peak season in Venice and most of the accommodations were booked. Anyway, we managed to find a really convenient place to stay on Airbnb. It was situated in Sestiere Cannaregio, just a 15 minutes walk from the train station. If you travel to Venice by train and you don’t want tourist crowds in front of your door, Cannaregio is the perfect place. We even could enjoy a quiet sunset there and Aperol Spritz for just 3.5 euros 🙂
Another thing we booked in advance was a 48h waterbus pass. It was easy to obtain the pass once we got in Venice. We entered the order number in one of those ticket machines right in front of the train station. This way we managed to avoid the waiting lines (which were quite big). I would advise buying a waterbus pass for your whole stay, because, without it, you are quite lost in terms of mobility. It is much faster to go from a point to the other with a waterbus than by foot (even if the distance seems short) — the bus stops are located all around the city and connect Venice islands such as Murano, Burano and Lido, to name just a few.
If you decide to walk, I would advise you to rely on google maps. Two days out of four we walked around the city. Without Google Maps we would definitely have been lost and still wandering around the streets of Venice. One thing to keep in mind — you can’t trust house numbers. If you search for the exact address, most likely, the route won’t show accurately. We used the names of the nearest locations instead.
Eating out was fun. Before the trip I found out about “coperto” — a service fee, which might or might not be included in your bill. After reading some horror stories about the pricing of food there, we were ready for everything. But there was nothing shady about the pricing/billing system in the places we dined. If there was a service fee, it was stated in the menu, so no surprises there. The largest one was 5 euro in a pizzeria in Burano, but the pizza and the service was definitely worth it 🙂
In terms of things to do — we had some things planned ahead. For example, visiting Ca’ D Oro, which I wanted to see since I studied art history. It was amazing! And the Lithuanian Pavilion for La Biennale di Venezia. We also spent one whole day visiting the nearest islands: Murano, Burano and San Servolo. The latter was a bit of a disappointment, as I read, that there is a nice cafe/restaurant. There was a cafe, but it was closed and no information about the working hours was provided. Nevertheless, there is a wonderful garden on San Servolo, it might be a super cool picnic getaway, we would definitely go there with our own food next time.
Huge part of our stay was just wandering around the streets of the city or riding a waterbus, or slowly sipping a glass of Aperol Spritz and trying to catch a glimpse of everyday life of the super busy (tourist-wise) city.
