Venice - Please tell me about it (this time of year and other travel stuff)

RaymondLin

So...very last minute.  long story short is that this weekend on my diary is a proper "free" one where I have no committments for the next 12 months, and thinking of going somewhere...so.

 

Venice.

 

What area is best to stay at.

How easy it is to get to and from the airport

Is 3 nights enough?

Any nice hotel you guys recommend?

Nice places to eat? or things to do.

 

I will be going by myself this time, just me, my camera and walking around.

Lexie1

Sorry to appear somewhat negative, but, we did a week in Rome, followed by a week in Venice and.....

Fly into Treviso one night, do Venice the next Day and then get back on the mainland and explore places like Verona etc by train.

Venice, lovely, BUT, how many Mask Shops and Venetian Glass shops can you realistically handle? 

RaymondLin

Lexie1 said:

Sorry to appear somewhat negative, but, we did a week in Rome, followed by a week in Venice and.....

Fly into Treviso one night, do Venice the next Day and then get back on the mainland and explore places like Verona etc by train.

Venice, lovely, BUT, how many Mask Shops and Venetian Glass shops can you realistically handle? 

Hence only 3 nights and in reality, 2 days.

 

I've been to Rome, Florence, Pisa, Bologna...not that many cities left in Italy.

GavRichList

buy your food fresh daily from the market - amazing cheeses / breads / tomatoes etc. Sit in a square, eat a DIY sandwich. Infinitely nicer / cheaper than the myriad of tourist places. Cannot recommend this enough. Weather in March can be pretty nice; When I went it was T-Shirt weather the whole time.

frankus

+1 for Treviso
 Disagree about Venice

This time of year is the perfect time to go, the square isn't flooded and the drains don't stink.

1) Get a Vaporetti pass - even to cross the main canal - there are only 3 bridges.
2) Places to go:
Glass Museum ,
the Glass Foundry in the CENTRE of Murano (do not get waylaid by any place claiming to be en route... they're shops where they want you to buy stuff, the glass foundary is full time pros who love to share their work - they don't sell anything to tourists.
Theres a lovely beach on the Lido but it might cost to get in.
The Doge's Palace
If you like art - the Gugenheim.
When you cross the Rialto - there will be pick pockets, they are good pickpockets
The Basilika St Marie
The Island Tours are great too..
ISTR there a remains of a church with a famous mural on it on Burano - which is mainly a Fishing village

Do get a Vaporetti pass and you can tour the islands ... you can manage it on a normal pass.

Venice is a great place but there's only so much for the tourists, the masks and stuff aren't all of it ... within 20 feet of the Square and a mask shop is an exposed wall dating back to Roman times ISTR ... but if you wander too far into the back streets you risk upsetting the locals who treasure what privacy they can get (or that was my experience).

Have a great time, it's a beautiful place in spite of the tourists

RaymondLin

re pick pockets, it's not nice, had my wallet stolen in Rome actually the night before leaving.  I guess the same precaution applies when in most cities and be on the look out and hand over pocket in a crowded area.

joneve

RaymondLin said:

re pick pockets, it's not nice, had my wallet stolen in Rome actually the night before leaving.  I guess the same precaution applies when in most cities and be on the look out and hand over pocket in a crowded area.

This - just be sensible and take precaution. 

We travelled round Europe for two and a half months and visited all the pick pocket hotspots - never had an issue. 

Venice is a nice city, but can't really add much to what's already been suggested. 

boogieman

We went there for my 60th last autumn and had a fantastic time. It's definitely not cheap, but if you eat at restaurants off the tourist trail it's not too bad.

The Doges Palace is definitely a worthwhile visit. The prison attached to it, which you get to via the Bridge of Sighs, is fascinating too. Don't get talked into buying a museum pass while you're there though, there's not much worth seeing that's included.

We did a vaporetto round trip of the islands one day: Murano, Burano and Torchello. Murano for glass as mentioned, Burano for lace and some very colourful houses, Torchello has an amazing mediaeval cathedral with a beautiful mural.

Getting around is easy, pretty much everything is walkable. Best advice is to just get a map and go and wander around. Half the fun is meandering round the tiny backstreets and squares and finding things.

Getting in from the airport is straightforward. A water taxi is quickest but costs an arm and leg: round €200. You can get a waterbus (Alilaguna), which is cheaper, or get an ordinary taxi which drops you at the Piazzale Roma, the main square next to the railway station, for about €40.

Probably don't need to say this, but take your camera. The scenery is brilliant and the light there is fantastic.

Hootsmon

take a Mac.....it's rather wet

stickyfiddle

Big wis for Frankus. We went a few years ago and had a great time over 3 nights despite lots of rain and a bit of flooding. Well worth seeing before it goes under and 3 days is a good amount of time.

We got a good deal on a place about 5 mins from St Mark's.

RaymondLin

What part of the island do you guys recommend to stay?

Is it best in the centre or closer to the edges?

GavRichList

Right. Hotel we stayed in was nice, and really handily placed; Hotel Montecarlo in calle specchieri, San Marco. Really nice restaurant to go to is Taverna San Trovaso, near Accadamia, and San Travaso Church.

A5D5E5

i don't think it matters where you stay - the place is tiny and half the fun is just walking around randomly.

Having said that, we stayed at the Carlton opposite the train station a few times - great views over the Grand Canal.

Three days is perfect.

As for places to eat, I would just walk around until I was hungry and the walk into the nearest restaurant - I've never had a bad meal there (though it isn't cheap compared to much of Italy)

boogieman

We stayed at the Ca'Sagredo, right on the Grand Canal next to the CaD'oro vaporetto stop. It was amazing. And so it should be, it's a 5 star hotel, converted from an old palace.

Anywhere on the Grand Canal is going to be premium rate. Like others have said though it's a relatively small city so it won't make a huge difference where you stay. You could probably walk right across the place in 30 minutes.

RaymondLin

So I have been looking at flights + hotel....frustrating.

Trying to keep it under £500...impossible.  If fly from Easyjet, only hand luggage, not only that, flying from Southend on sea airport and land in Luton...what am I going to do with my car?

Looked at BA, its £550.   and the flight is at 8:50am (I live 3 hours away from the airport)

On top of that I need to pay around £60 parking and £50 petrol....Hmmmm

Will need to play with dates, perhaps Saturday to Tuesday.

The alternative is Vienna, not been there either and it's like half the price from quite search. 

Babones

I was there, this time last year and had fantastic weather - sunny & warm, eating outside at lunchtime etc.

There are two buses from the airport (run by two different companies). One is more frequent (looks like a city bus, i think its the no.5 run by ACTV) and the other is less frequent (looks like a coach, run by ATVO). You can buy tickets in the airport, but be sure to get the right one for the right bus. I recommend the 5. If you're loaded and want to feel like James Bond, you can take a water taxi straight from the airport.

Food. You may see the word cicchetti (chee-keh-tea) a lot, this is the local Venetian tapas essentially. I can recommend a place called Paradiso Perduto (Lost Paradise) up in Cannareggio, for a nice lunchtime fritto misto with polenta, or other assorted seafood flavoured dishes, washed down with an inexpensive jug of wine. Nights can be busy though, so you might be better off trying around lunchtime and really, you want to be outside. It's all pretty casual and it helps if you can speak Italian. Pizza isn't really a Venetian thing, although there is a decent pizzeria on the southern end, but i can't remember the name.

3 days is plenty. Just go explore and get lost. I find parts of Cannaregio and the east to be more 'local'/less touristy, but just follow your nose. You'll cover it all in that time for sure. If you want to go further afield, the train station is nearby and train travel is cheaper in Italy than in the UK. You could do day trip to Padova or Verona for example.

stickyfiddle

I found out hotel - Hotel Centauro off Campo Manin. Very good value when we were there around 2010

JRL

3 nights is perfect.

Wander around all the streets, find a random little restaurant hidden away, it will be better and cheaper than anything near the tourist stuff.

For good wine really cheap there are wine shops that fill bottles straight from barrels.

Snap

Raymond - if you fancy doing something different, and want to fly from Luton, try Tel Aviv. a little under 5 hours flight, 20 minutes to city, if that, from airport by taxi. Stay by the beach, it will be warm. Amble up the beach to Old Jaffa, get a bus to Jerusalem one day, Dead Sea the next. Have a chill on the beach the other day.

Unlike what you may think or hear, its very safe, the people are ace, and its very different.

Not cheap though, quite gritty, but remarkably safe. Jersualem is something else too, seriously spectacular.

Last time I was there (December), I got a flight to Eilat (40 miuntes, 90 quid return ish, may have been less) and went to Petra - out of this world. The other way to do it is go directly East from Tel Aviv, you can do it in a day, on your tod, or on a tour. Tour is better I think. Its possibly one of the few places I've been ot that lived up to the hype, as did Jersualem.

I'm an israel convert.

RaymondLin

Thanks for all the suggestions guys ! Unfortunately a change of heart, plus logistically in terms of flights and airport departures it means I'm going to another city instead, so will notes your ideas down for the next trip. Probably in the autumn when I'll decide where I'll go. As for this weekend, I'm off to Copenhagen to eat some Danish , nip over to Malmo for some meatballs! Lol

Kebabkid

Water water everywhere and not a drop to drink.....for under 5 Euros.