Jamie Fehr

Venice has been a major tourist hub for the last four hundred years, or so Rick Steve’s Guide to Venice 2006 claims. It’s true, Venice is crawling with tourists.

Anyway, here is the non-comprehensive rundown of things I did while in Venice or as the Italians call it, Venezia.

St. Marks Square

St. Mark’s square was once the epicenter of an ancient east meets west trading world, and the architecture is very indicative of that. It is undoubtedly the area to visit while in Venice and with its awe-inspiring construction, open spaces, and tall clock tower.

Of note is that there are hoards of pigeons there. So much so in fact, that the guide book we had even included a section on what to do if indeed a pigeons did poop on you. Also, this square floods over 100 times a year.

Price: Free

St. Marks Basilica

St. Marks Basilica has some very impressive gold mosaics, but if your not into pretty paint by number rock placement, this place could really be a drag.

Price: Free (for the Main area, there are extra places you can pay to get to)

The Gondola’s

You have to be careful with those crazy traditional black boats that take you on a romantic cruise around town. We a group of five and we asked how much for a ride around town, the guy responded with €20, great, only €4/person we jump at the opportunity, only the Gondalier figured out our thought process and felt it necessary to clarify that the charge €20/person. That was way to much and we told him that, he said make an offer, we said we’d give €10/person. He finally agreed to €12/person, James felt that we could have gotten him to ten, but whatever, we were riding in the boats that Venice is most notorious for.

Price: Depends, but don’t be afraid to haggle

Vaporetto

These are the water buses and they are probably the cheapest tour of Venice you can have. Just hop on #1, #51, or #81 and take in the Grand Canal. Just be prepared to wait a long time for the good seats.

Price: €12 for a 24-hour pass.

Eating

There are two things about eating in Venice. One I don’t think that the food is very traditionally italian. It looks and tastes like westernized Italian food except with very small servings that cost an arm and a leg.

Two, every restaurant charges a 10-15% service charge on top of everything sold, so when you think that your tortellini is only €11 it’s more likely to cost you €13 and when you think your can of Coca-Cola is only €3 it’s really more like €3.50. This adds up really quick.

So in an effort to save money you should try the “Touristic Menu” and for between €14 and €19 you can get a meal that includes two plates of food, a beverage, and the service charge. Nearly every restaurant has one. And while at first it may sound expensive and limited, trying to build your own meal will leave you broke and unsatiated(from the root word sate, and oh yes I knew this word without going to a thesaurus).

Price: €14-€23

Accommodations

Accommodations are probably the hardest thing to find in Venice. The tourist season never stops and so my advice is book early. We didn’t that put us on the far end of an Island called Lido. It wasn’t bad, Lido is quite nice, it just meant the was no quick trip back to the hostel.

Our hostel, Locanda da Scarso on the island of Lido, was very small, as a matter of fact, it only had 6 rooms. That didn’t, however, mean service was second class, we got free breakfast and very personal attention, all for a mere €31/person/night.

Price: €31/person/night

Venice probably really is a nice town, and this review is exceptionally biased. Venice was the last stop on a long trip and I was sick, I really didn’t want to see Venice and so that’s the experience this review was written on.