Venice

Kinetic^

Heading to Venice on Thursday for a few days.......just wondering if people had any do and don't advice for when we're there.

SuperSean11

Dont get on the wrong flight:D

Kinetic^

SuperSean11 wrote:

Dont get on the wrong flight:D

Wise man.....you truly are super!!!

SuperSean11

Cool

cwynnes

Do get on the wrong flight, Dont go .....i found it to be the most boring city in the world...thats just me tho, im not into all that architecture and stuff and stuff

Kinetic^

cwynnes wrote:

Do get on the wrong flight, Dont go .....i found it to be the most boring city in the world...thats just me tho, im not into all that architecture and stuff and stuff

Interesting.

Tiesto

An absolutely amazing place..
So surreal. Its been a few years since ive been there but like any tourist location, particularly in Italy, there is plenty of people about waiting to take advantage of you. So just have your head screwed on when your in a restaurant, or maybe buying something off someone on the streets.

In the main square in Venice you can buy a bag of bird food for a few euro.
You will have birds eating out of ur hand.. Kinda like if your in a strip club and you got a handful of 20 euro notes. You know what I mean?

Remember to negotiate the price for a trip on the gondolas.

Kinetic^

Finally some constructive advice, thanks tiesto. Have been to Rome so know all about the potential tourist traps.

Lollers @ stripclub!!!!

Tiesto

ok if you've been to Rome then you know exactly what im talking about.
Rome is nice but I wouldnt go for for that simple reason..

c - 13

Some good info for you here -
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055040061

Kinetic^

Some good stuff in there, thanks c-13. How'd you find it?

c - 13

I really liked it, although I do enjoy architecture and art etc so that may have forced my opinion.

I have been meaning with ages to write up my Venice review so now is as good a time as any !

First, thanks all who gave me advice on the other thread ! Some great information there.

The reason I left it so long in writing a review is I had a terrible experience with Ryanair on both the way over and back.

Anyway, ill skip over the flights (unless you want to hear my tale of woe)

I loved Venice I thought it was a fabulous city with bags of charm.

As you can see from the other thread I stay at Ca'Bonvicini, Lovely B&B, very central, appropriately priced, own terrace on the roof (Request Room 4 if you want this ).

Sabina, the receptionist, was absolutely lovely and took care of everything for us. For example due to flight f*ck ups we were due to arrive as 10PM on the Friday, we arrived at 6AM on the Saturday. Because its a B&B none of the staff actually stayed there so I had to ring and enquire about how we were going to get in.

Sabina hid a key outside for us, left our room key on the reception and personally made us coffee when we got up the following day. Therefore I cant reccomend Ca'Bonvicini highly enough ! (other couples we met up with werent nearly as lucky, several of them couldnt get into their B&B's until they re-opened again on the Saturday !)

Anyway, I would suggest buying a decent map for starters as its very easy to get lost. We spent about 5 hours on the first day wandering about lost because we were too stubborn to buy a map .

The venetian people are lovely and we had several people stop to ask us if we were ok when they saw us looking a little confused.

Prices are expensive enough, not quite as expensive as I had thought though. For example we had a dinner on one of the days (Two courses bottle of wine €40, which I personally thought was very good). Fast food (Walk in pizzarias) are fairly expensive though (two pizza slices and bottle coke for €15).

The city (as others pointed out) is beautiful, but spoiled by graffiti.

My reccomendations would be -

• Go wandering, you never know where you will find !
• Try to speak Italian if possible, extra charges seem to go on for foreigners !
• Dont be afraid to ask if you are lost etc. anyone I met was really lovely and went out of their way to help.
• Visit SanMarco plaza early in the day if you want to see it at its best.
• Only visit Lido if you want to get out of "Touristy" Venice for a couple of hours, theres not a lot there.
• Get a 3 Day pass for the waterbus, they run 24 hours a day and are a great way to see the city from the Grand Canal
• Sit down somewhere for a while and just watch everything go by, youll be surprised what you might see !

Also watch out where you eat, a couple we met up with got stung €200 for a meal in one place, seems to be a common scam there supposedly.

Everyone has great english over there too !

If you want to ask anything specific fire away or PM me.

Heres a few of our photos for anyone who is interested, some nice snaps off the Grand Canal -
http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/view?p=999&gid=15132094&uid=8068389&members=1

ixoy

Was there last September for 4 nights and loved it.

Would recommend that you try one of the Ghost Tours. They leave from Rialto Bridge at about 8pm two nights or so a week (you should be able to get literature from your hotel). They involve walking aroudn the narrow streets for an hour or so, stopping at various points and hearing stories. They were well presented and it showed me areas that weren't in other guide books.

If you're going for food, I'd take the time to go a little bit off of the main tourist areas, which always rip you off. Food will be as nice and even nicer to your wallet.

If you've time, visit some of the other islands. Murano has glass making facilities (closed when we went there) and there's Burano (not too much here) and Torcello (a lot more rundown but I appreciated the open-ness of it, a refreshing change from the strongly urban main isle).

Kinetic^

Sweet.....our hotel is on Grand canal so it'll be handy for the water bus.

Going for 3 nights but out early on the last day so we've 3 days.

Going to pick up one of those AA guides as they've served us well in Paris and Rome.

c - 13

Oh yeah watch out for the beggars, a lot of them will constantly follow you around the place. Also some bars etc will allow rose sellers etc to wander into the bar. That can be annoying (especially if your with the GF)