venice

the corpo

wooo! going in 2 weeks. girlfriend got the trip as a surprise today. so excited 8)

any tips?

Humphrey

Yeah, buy a big Diamond and Surprise her again

Dun

First thing buy a three-day ticket for the vaporetto, or whatever length of time you're gonna be there. Definitely don't avoid going up the campanile (bell tower) in the Piazza San Marco - views of the whole of Venice, but wierdly you can't see any canals bar the Gran Canal .

Whatever you do DO NOT leave without taking a vaporetto trip through the Gran Canal when it's well dark. Sit up the front or down the back on the outside. We did this the first night, and then had to do it every night then

Find a supermarket (there's one on Via Garibaldi if you're near there) and buy any drinks/food there cause you can charged from €3 to €5 for a can of coke in touristy areas. Supermarkets are generally open from 8/9 to 2 in the afternoon, and 4 to 7.30. You can buy stamps at any 'tabaccaio' (tobacconists). There are loads round the place.

Get the boat out to Burano to see the glass blowing. The demonstrations are free (but all tips welcome) and they make you leave through the glass shop, but you don't have to buy anything.

Beware the restaurants - lots of them display tourist menus that only apply if you're sitting inside and order directly from the menu. Ask if you can get the fixed price menu, otherwise you might get a nasty surprise. Don't leave without trying pizza or lasagne if you've not been to Italy before.

If you have the will/patience, learn a few choice phrases (quant'é? - how much is it? etc. and numbers). Does a world of good. And bring the camera film with you - don't get it out there.

BTW a gondala trip will cost about €90 for a 50 minute trip :eek:

That's all I can think of right now. Overall just relax and enjoy yourselves!

the corpo

cheers!

have you any accomodation recommendations?

Dun

We stayed in this apartment:

http://www.holiday-rentals.co.uk/index.cfm/property/5175.cfm

It was really nice - it's in a very quiet, residential area though, and you're asked to be quiet after ten. It wasn't available the first night we were there, so we stayed in cabins in this camp site:

http://www.bootsnall.com/hostels/eu/it/ven/66.shtml

Really cheap. It's about half an hour away from Venice and there are frequent enough buses (every hour or so until 10.30pm).

On our last night we were too far away to get the connection from our vaporetto stop (Giardini) to the Ryanair bus as it was leaving to early, so we stayed in Treviso, the town where Ryanair actually flys from, and got the bus out in the morning. It's a bit outside the town but it was well worth it - really lovely hotel and the owners are really, really friendly. This is the address:

http://www.albgiard.it/inglese/index_gb.htm

We booked everything, flights and accommodation over the internet.

Humphrey

Hi dun_do_bheal,

That Hostels looks great. Have you any tips on the cheapest way to get to venice if you are willing to get connecting trains et cetera.

Humphrey.

Zaltais

Word of warning about the Vaporetto - be very careful about your belongings....

I was on it twice and people's pockets were picked twice....

Also there's a bit of a seedy element that frequent's the Vaporetto.

This is just based on my personal experience, but I'd recommend that if you do use it to be aware of what's going on around you.

Also about Venice in general, the locals can be very rude to tourists, it's nothing personal, it's just the way they are. Finally don't hop on the first Gondalla you see.... you can save a fortune by steering a little clear of the main tourist pick-ups.

Dun

Originally posted by Humphrey
Hi dun_do_bheal,

That Hostels looks great. Have you any tips on the cheapest way to get to venice if you are willing to get connecting trains et cetera.

Humphrey.

From the hostel to Venice? They run a bus both ways, as far as I recall it cost €3. The hostel has a swimming pool, shop, cafeteria and bar. Though quite expensive - but then so are most places in Venice :rolleyes: .

If you're talking about from Ireland, I went from Derry (I live in Donegal) to London Stansted, and from there to Treviso airport with Ryanair. It cost us €106 return - i.e. practically nothing! Of course you can get to Stansted via Dublin, Cork, Shannon, Sligo or Knock as far as I'm aware. Then when you arrive in Treviso, you have to get the Ryanair bus into the city centre. If I recall correctly, the price was something like €7 and it took about 40 minutes to get into the city.

Zaltais, I never noticed any 'seedy' element on the Vaporetto - we used it frequently at all hours and never felt unsafe or had any bad experiences, on the contrary we loved it and used it all the time. Since there are no buses or trains in the city for obvious reasons everybody uses it.

Zaltais

Hi dun_do_bheal,

Like I said, this was based on my experiences while I was there, and perhaps we just got on the wrong Vaporetto's (or Vaporetta?) at the wrong time, but basically one of the times I was on the Vaporetto, there was a gentleman 'availing of the services of another gentleman' and the impression I got was that they didn't exactly know each other, it was just a 'hand-y' arrangement.

I'm sure that this probably was an isolated incident, but that said, we were warned by our tour operator about the Vaporetto being frequented by pick-pockets. However, that said, they could simply have taken advantage of the fact that we were all wide eyed tourists.

Never hurts to keep your eyes open no matter where you go on holiday, and I suppose I'm especially vocal about Venice because I've seen pick-pockets in action there.

I'm not saying don't go, I'm not saying be paranoid, I'm just saying, be careful, and be aware.

Humphrey

Cheers dun_do_bheal for all the information. I might surprise my girlfriend sometime. Would you recommend staying in the hostel for the entire trip?? (Say 3 nights).

I was thinking of going to Stanstead and then getting a connecting flight but I would be afraid of missing the connecting flight you know with flight delays etc. Any tips on this matter as you have obviously already done this...

Thanks,
Humphrey.

Dun

I dunno about three days - it's a bit far out. The thing is that although it's not that far, it means that you can't just pop back for an hour and put your feet up..

We had a six hour delay in Stansted, but that was okay, as it was our second flight that was delayed. We left a big gap (on purpose) between our return flight times to make sure that we got back to Donegal grand and weren't stuck in Stansted.

Mind you we'd grand craic in the airport trying to talk in Irish about English people and other foreigners

Cake Fiend

Don't get drunk.
Very easy to get lost/drown