A Day In Venice

Venice is a city like no oth­er. It is an absolute­ly unique place that you find nowhere else in the world, with a rich her­itage, a one-of-a-kind geog­ra­phy, won­der­ful Ital­ian charm and stun­ning beau­ty at every cor­ner.

But why only 24 hours, you ask?

Well, recent­ly I was doing my week­ly check of pos­si­ble des­ti­na­tions and came across an irre­sistible offer: a two day return trip from Berlin to Venice for a mere 35€. I couldn’t pos­si­bly say no to this oppor­tu­ni­ty and so quick­ly booked two flights. Now I only need­ed to call Ben to tell him that he should bet­ter pack his bags because we were going to Venice!

While 24 hours are cer­tain­ly not a lot, it is def­i­nite­ly enough to give you a glimpse of this won­drous city and make you want to come back. To make the most out of your short trip, here are a view tips.

Things to do

• Wan­der! For real, espe­cial­ly if you only have a short amount of time, the best thing you can do is walk around and explore the tiny alleys and canals, watch the locals going after their dai­ly busi­ness­es and get an authen­tic feel­ing for this breath­tak­ing city. Although I would rec­om­mend not fol­low­ing a strict route I put togeth­er two walks that bring you to the most inter­est­ing and scenic areas of the main island:
  • High­lights at Night
  • South-West­ern Cir­cle

Cut your way through the mil­lion tiny alley­ways to dis­cov­er the sim­plic­i­ty and live­li­ness of Venice.

• Eat lots and lots of Venet­ian food — not just piz­za and gela­to (which are amaz­ing) but also try some local food like Cic­chet­ti (they are sim­i­lar to tapas). The small snacks served in Venice’s bars are per­fect to get a taste of the var­i­ous local spe­cial­ties.

• Don’t for­get to vis­it the main tourist attrac­tions as well: the Rial­to bridge and the San Mar­co square with its palace, basil­i­ca and cam­panile.

• If you have some more time or the weath­er isn’t play­ing along, def­i­nite­ly vis­it some of the spec­tac­u­lar muse­ums, gal­leries or church­es. There are count­less options, so check out Tri­pAd­vi­sor to find the ones you are most inter­est­ed in.

• No vis­it to Venice is com­plete with­out a gon­do­la ride! You can either choose to do a tra­di­tion­al tour along the Grand Canal for 80€ per gon­do­la (100€ after 7pm, the prices are the same every­where) or, if that exceeds your bud­get, you can reduce the price dras­ti­cal­ly by find­ing some oth­er trav­el­ers (up to 6) to share the gon­do­la with. While this is admit­ted­ly not quite as roman­tic as a solo tour it’s still a nice, afford­able option. If you don’t care about the gon­do­las but still want to see Venice from the water­side you can eas­i­ly do so by tak­ing a Vaporet­to, a water bus. You can get tick­ets from 7.50€ per trip or a day tick­et for 20€.

A gon­do­la ride is a must-do on every trip to Venice.

How to get there

There are two air­ports in the greater area around Venice: Mar­co Polo Air­port (VCE) and Venice Tre­vi­so (TSF). Both are locat­ed on the main­land, with Mar­co Polo Air­port being the larg­er air­port of the two and clos­est to Venice. You can fly to Mar­co Polo Air­port from most Euro­pean met­ro­pol­i­tan areas, how­ev­er the low-cost car­ri­ers RyanAir and WIZZ Air char­ter exclu­sive­ly at Venice Tre­vi­so.

RyanAir offers the low­est fares by far. Flights from Berlin, Frank­furt, Lon­don and Paris all cost below 30€ for a return flight includ­ing hand lug­gage (as of August 2017). How­ev­er, this means that you will land in Venice Tre­vi­so and need to get to Venice from there. No wor­ries, it’s a piece of cake:

1. Leave the arrivals hall at Venice Tre­vi­so and cross the bus and taxi lanes until you reach the actu­al road.
2. Turn right. You should already see the bus stop about 200m down the road. If you have trou­ble find­ing it, just ask, there are plen­ty of peo­ple around.
3. Take bus num­ber 6 to Stazione Fs and pay 1,30€ per per­son.

Tip: You can find the cur­rent time table of the bus on the offi­cial web­site. It’s only avail­able in Ital­ian but you sim­ply have to nav­i­gate down to bus line 6. There you can see three pdfs: the first one is for reg­u­lar ser­vice on week­days, the sec­ond one for sun­days and hol­i­days, and the third one specif­i­cal­ly for Jan­u­ary 1st and the east­er hol­i­days.

4. Get out at Stazione Fs.
5. Head to the tun­nel that brings you to the train sta­tion on the oth­er side of the road.
6. You can buy your tick­et at the tick­et machines but I would rec­om­mend to get them at the counter. This way you can already get your return tick­et as well. Return tick­ets are 6,80€ per per­son.
7. Val­i­date your tick­et at one of the machines.
8. Board the train to Venezia San­ta Lucia. They leave every 30 min­utes.
9. After half an hour you will reach Venice!

There are oth­er options as well, includ­ing a direct bus from the air­port or taxis. They are, how­ev­er, much more expen­sive (start­ing at 20€ per trip) and take longer as well, so I would def­i­nite­ly rec­om­mend tak­ing the train.

Where we stayed

When I first checked the hotel prices I was speech­less.

Although it was still off-sea­son, the prices raked up high, espe­cial­ly as we had to stay on the main island because time was our most valu­able resource and we couldn’t afford hav­ing to take the train into the city in the morn­ing.

I would have even­tu­al­ly set­tled on no sleep at all hadn’t I found a nice accom­mo­da­tion called “Sleep Cheap at Francesca’s B&b” that I found on hostelsclub.com.

We got two beds in a 6-bed dorm includ­ing break­fast for 25€ which is still a lot for a dorm but the absolute cheap­est there was.

The B&b is locat­ed in the Cannare­gio dis­trict, north of the train sta­tion San­ta Luzia which is con­ve­nient for those arriv­ing by train. We walked around 15 min­utes from the sta­tion on a busy street with many sights along the way: pompous bridges, stores that sell the famous Venet­ian masks and a small mar­ket.

On the final stretch we got a bit lost as the house was nes­tled in a tiny alley and had no signs up. We even­tu­al­ly found the cor­rect house num­ber with a bell and the name Francesca on it. When the door opened we found our­selves in a tiny, rus­tic stair­case. On the first floor we were greet­ed by Francesca, a sweet Asian lady that had con­vert­ed her apart­ment into a small B&b. Thus the whole thing felt more like a mix of a hos­tel and a home­s­tay but we enjoyed it nonethe­less. It was inter­est­ing to see a typ­i­cal Venet­ian apart­ment from the inside. Although the accom­mo­da­tion wasn’t very fan­cy it was all we need­ed for a good night.

Even though it’s not very cen­tral, the hos­tel is locat­ed in a nice area from where you can reach every­thing on the main island by foot. There is also a vaporet­to sta­tion close by if you’d rather take the boat.

I would rec­om­mend this hos­tel if you are look­ing for a cheap place to crash for a night or two.

Although I have been to Venice thrice in my life already, it seems that I have sim­ply been too young to ful­ly appre­ci­ate it back then. This time how­ev­er I fell deeply in love with this mar­velous city — love at fourth sight so to speak..

Venice is a photographer’s dream come true with oppor­tu­ni­ties at lit­er­al­ly every cor­ner (and every­one else’s, who loves his­to­ry and archi­tec­ture).

A city you NEED to see at least once in your life and def­i­nite­ly one of my top city picks world­wide!

Have you been to Venice? Share your must-dos and must-sees with me below in the com­ments or on Social Media. I’d love to hear from you!