Touring Venice Question

[FloridaJim57]

Am thinking of visiting Venice for the first time. Not interested in any other area of Italy right now. Is it easy to book tours once I arrive there? Can anyone recommend a decent, moderate priced hotel in Venice? Any advice, suggestions, etc. welcome.

 

[Palmtree]

Venice- We've stayed there at least three times. I don't know how long you're going to be there, but here are some hints. Venice at sunrise is fantastic. At that time the city is yours. The Rialto bridge is almost empty of tourists and St Marks Square is not packed. By 10:00am every tourist hotspot is packed like sardines. The good way to see the Grand Canal is by taking one of the local water buses (vaporettos) down and back. Doing this at night is 1000 times better! During the day, anything close to the Grand Canal is jam packed with tourists. Go three or four blocks off the canal and Venice is more authentic and much less crowded. Get a map, stroll around. Stop for coffee and a slice of pizza or gellato in one of the back alleys. Find a bench and watch the world go by. Enjoy the moment.
But really. Buy a map. You'll need it.

I would think you could book a tour when there, but I would book at least a few days in advance if you could. Toursbylocals.com has good reviews.

 

[Gumby]

We stayed at the Hotel al Ponte Antico for a week. https://www.alponteantico.com It was wonderful. We sat out on the terrace shown in the picture, sipped wine and watched the people down in the canal aboard the vaporetti and all the people on the Rialto Bridge. And you could tell by the looks of everyone going by that they were all thinking "damn, I should have stayed there."

A couple recommendations for out of the way sites:

1.) Go to the Naval History Museum. It is located in a nice quiet area, is interesting and inexpensive. And, even better, you can use the restroom while you're there (otherwise, you have to pay to use public restrooms in Venice).

2.) Take the standard ferry boat to the islands of Torcello and Burano, which are interesting and uncrowded. It is very inexpensive. You can also go to Murano on the same ferry (we did), but it is more crowded with people who are interested in the glass workshops.

 

[audreyh1]

We need to return to Venice because I’ve always wanted to see the glass production in Murano.

 

[Souschef]

Get a map! Very important!, On buildings there are arrows pointing to either Piazza San Marco or the Ferrovia (Railroad station.
Get an all day pass on the vaporetto and spend all day riding them. We toured Burano (lace) Murano (glass) and the Grand Canal.
We ended up in a cafe at sunset with the sun lighting up the windows of the church.
ETA story about our trip to Venice

 

[PaunchyPirate]

My perspective. I don't think you need to book any tours while in Venice if you're walkers. Just research what you want to see using any good guide book. Then wander around (map is optional) to find your way. It's an immensely walkable place. And/Or learn how to ride the vaporetto boats all over the place. That's what I did. I purchased a 3-day boat pass and rode to the places I didn't want to walk to.

Getting lost in Venice is part of the experience. You will eventually find your way to where you want to go by using the signs posted on the sides of buildings along the alleyways.

 

[Souschef]

My perspective. I don't think you need to book any tours while in Venice if you're walkers. Just research what you want to see using any good guide book. Then wander around (map is optional) to find your way. It's an immensely walkable place. And/Or learn how to ride the vaporetto boats all over the place. That's what I did. I purchased a 3-day boat pass and rode to the places I didn't want to walk to.

Getting lost in Venice is part of the experience. You will eventually find your way to where you want to go by using the signs posted on the sides of buildings along the alleyways.

What you need a map for is to see where the different vaporettos go. Each route is shown on the map and are numbered, and each dock is numbered

I agree. I once read somewhere "to discover Venice get lost in Venice". I walked from the Piazza St Marks to the railway station (ferrovia), I discovered a large square with shops on all sides, with almost nobody there. I just sat on a bench and soaked in the atmosphere.

 

[braumeister]

I've enjoyed Donna Leon's novels featuring Commissario Brunetti (Venice detective). They give a great feeling for the atmosphere of the city. Your library should have at least some of them.

Here's the first one:
Death at La Fenice

 

[Luvtoride]

Tour guide for Venice

I believe you should definitely book a private tour guide, early in your visit to give you a great perspective of the city and help you target areas and things you will want to go back and visit on your own.
We used an excellent tour guide when we were there in October of '22 and she customized our tour with her exactly as we wanted it.
I'm not trying to advertise her services, but if you're interested, DM me and I will be happy to provide our guide's contact information.

 

[OldShooter]

We like small hotels. Here's one with 17 rooms, almost under the Rialto bridge: https://rivadelvin.it/en

Be careful with non-bank ATMs. I am so used to fair exchange rates that I did not read the screen on the private ATM near the hotel. Got clipped with an exchange rate that was about 20% unfavorable vs bank rates.

I agree on the private guide, though I can't find the contact info for the one we used. One economy tactic is to hire the guide for the first half-day or full day and use them to plan the rest of your guideless stay plus learn how to handle the water taxis, etc.

 

[Gumby]

We spent a week in Venice and never used a tour guide. Just read up on the city extensively before we went, decided on some things to see while we were there, got a good map and wandered around by ourselves. If you really want to prepare well, use Google maps street view to see the routes you want to take around the city step by step.

 

[rodi]

I've been to Venice several times.

I used google maps very effectively to figure out paths and vaporettos.

If you like museums there are passes that combine museums, vaporetto passes, and church passes. I really enjoyed the Choral Pass - which gets you into many of the churches with amazing art.

https://www.veneziaunica.it/

The Peggy Guggenheim museum is amazing if you enjoy modern art. Last spring we saw it was going to be raining one day, so we pre-booked time slotted tickets and were able to bypass the very long line. (Everyone else figured a museum was great for a rainy day - but had to wait in line.)

Another suggestion is to do a tour of the Jewish Ghetto. It was not at all what I expected and gave a good history of how Venice was different, in many ways, than the rest of Italy during WWII.

Don't be afraid of vaporettos. Be sure you frank your ticket (or phone QR) before you board and you're good to go.

Final tip: If you want a less expensive gondola ride, or just need to get across the grand canal and are between bridges, consider a Traghetto di Gondola. It's only 2 euros. These are the same type of boats (without the fancy seats) and two rowers, one a trained gondolier, the other an apprentice. They literally just cross between fixed points. Locals stand up in the boat. Often there are up to 10 people on the boat. Part of the rigorous training to become a gondolier requires training on the Traghetto under a gondolier.

 

[rodi]

A few more thoughts.

Pick a hotel near one of the bridges: Accademia, Rialto, etc... That makes starting out each morning easy, regardless of which side of the canal you are exploring. Use a Vaporetto to cross (if you're not near an open Traghetto spot). (Plug into google maps and it will tell you where your stop is and what vaporetto to get.)

If it is summer, and you want a down/rest day - consider taking the Vaporetto out to Lido. Cross the skinny island and you'll find a beach. You can lay towels down on the sand for free, but chairs and umbrellas are available for rent. It's a short walk from the vaporetto stop to the beach... 4 blocks or so.

I really enjoyed both Murano (glass) and Burano (lace). Burano especially had few tourists and tourist trap shops. The tour of a glass factory on Murano was interesting... The further from the Vaporetto stop the better the prices for glass and lace.

 

[Jenna]

FWIW- GPS did not work so we took photos along the way to make it back to our hotel. Venice was my absolute favorite city in the world. Im not a very emotional person but I cried when we rode away in the boat. There's something so magical about Venice.

We stayed in a Marriott hotel for convenience and to use our status.

 

[SecondAttempt]

I agree I would not hire a guide for Venice. It's just pretty easy and getting lost is part of the fun. We stayed at AC Hotel Venezia because it is part of Marriott which I have high status with after years of work travel. It was a very nice hotel near the train station but for history you could do better. I look at three places when deciding to book a tour - getyourguide app, viator app, and Atlas Obscura website. I do sometimes book tours throut viator or getyourguide but did not find it helpful in Venice.