Three Things I Did Wrong in Venice
You can’t get there from here
Ah, Venice. That magical, magnificent, impossible city on the water. Home to a lost empire and, not coincidentally, over a hundred thousand clueless tourists per day (such as myself), wandering through the cobblestone streets with one eye on their glorious surroundings and the other on Google Maps, trying to figure out how to get where they’re going.
I understand why people call it Disneyland for adults. The simple fact of traveling everywhere by boat makes it seem as though it couldn’t possibly be a real place where real people live - and it’s certainly true that the crush of tourists (such as myself) has driven that state closer and closer to being a reality. Only about 50,000 residents live on the collection of islands we think of as Venice (though the greater metro area, which includes the mainland, has a healthy quarter million). The number of daily visitors is more than double that, at peak season.
On the other hand, Venice has always been a global crossroads. In many ways, I felt like I was participating in its epic, thousand-year history, by arriving from an unglamorous hinterland (aka Seattle) to gawk at its waterborne palaces and try to imagine the lives of the people who lived inside them. Though it was famously a republic, it behaved like an empire, gobbling up territory all across the Mediterranean with its powerful navy, and like most republics and democracies today, it was mostly run by the wealthiest of its old men. (Although, on a tour of the Doge’s palace, I was surprised to learn that this nominal leadership position was a lot more like a prison sentence. Once selected by members of the nobility, the Doge couldn’t refuse the position - nor could he leave that lovely palace without permission.)
The way to get the most out of a visit to Venice while it’s still above sea level is, in my opinion, to lean in to the tourism. You’re not going to be a “temporary resident.” No one else is, either. You’re there to see one of the most beautiful and unique cities in the world. Just go with it. Take the selfie. Go on the gondola ride. Buy the glass. (It’s beautiful.)
Let me also offer you a short list of things not to do, based on the mistakes I made there as a first-timer:
Assuming there are always gondolas.
“Venice is lousy with gondolas,” I hear the Experienced Travelers complaining. “They’re just everywhere. It’s so touristy.” They might be everywhere, but as I learned on my last night, they are not everywhen.
Traveling with another couple, we thought we’d enjoy a nice dinner out, at a proper Italian mealtime, and have a charming gondola ride afterwards. When in Rome Venice, right?
Nope.
We went from one end of the historic core to the other, looking for one. Guess what! They all go home at about 7:30!
It’s true that the best time of day to get a gondola ride is in the evening, when the city has that beautiful twilight feeling and the cruise shippers have returned whence they came. But don’t leave it too late, or your service workers will all be home with their families enjoying a civilized lifestyle that does not revolve around the whims of their customers. (I can hear my fellow Americans getting confused already.)
2. Failing to plan ahead. For everything.
We went to Venice in mid-April - theoretically shoulder season - and were rewarded by the ability to move around in the streets without being trampled by a hundred thousand other people. But the world is fully post-pandemic, and everyone who put off that trip of a lifetime for two or three years is by God taking it now. We bought advanced tickets for the Doge’s palace and San Marco, and decided to live without going to some of the most popular restaurants that had booked up weeks or months before.
What I forgot to book ahead was luggage stowage for our last day.
My intrepid spouse and I decided to take a night train from Venice to our next destination - but we checked out of our vacation rental at 11am and had to leave our bags somewhere between then and our 8PM departure.
Not to worry, I said confidently. I’ve mapped out several luggage storage places around the city center. We take our bags there, we get a locker, easy peasy.
It took us three tries to find a place that had room. Turns out luggage storage is another thing that can - and should - be booked in advance. The place we ended up leaving our bags was conveniently located at the train station, and it was staffed, but I didn’t like the way the bags were getting chucked around, so I ended up spending the day carrying around my most fragile purchases: a glass inkstand and a Venetian mask.
3. Missing the top half of one of the city’s major sights.
The Basilica di San Marco is one of the most magnificent churches in Europe. It’s a culture-clashing mix of Byzantine and traditional Gothic design, with a healthy sprinkling of Islamic architectural touches and some of the most mind-blowing mosaics you might ever lay eyes on. I spent a good 45 minutes wandering around through the main chapel and the altar in the back, listening to the Rick Steves audio tour of it and trying to reconcile my feelings about organized religion with the sheer splendor of the building. When I got to the far side of the building, having lost track of the other folks in my group, I headed outside.
Turns out, there’s an upstairs. Did you know that? I didn’t.
According to my fellow travelers, the second floor (a small extra charge to enter) gets you up closer and even more personal with the mosaics that cover the ceiling. It also contains several beautiful artifacts, including a life-size set of bronze horses that were looted from Constantinople after the Fourth Crusade, and adorned the outside of the basilica from 1204 until Napoleon looted them again in 1797. It’s also a great place to get a killer view of St. Mark’s Square.
In conclusion, don’t do any of those three things, but here are a few things I got right, for which you should absolutely follow my example:
Buy a vaporetto pass. It will pay for itself almost immediately and is the most convenient way to get around. Water taxis cost an arm and a leg.
Water taxis are, however, a fun way to arrive to Venice from the airport. You can often take them directly to your lodgings - it was a delightful experience. The Venice airport has great signage that will direct you to the kiosk where you can purchase your ticket, and from there they will tell you what pier you can get your taxi from. It’s expensive, but if you’re arriving jet-lagged and confused, it’s a fun and convenient way to get yourself to your hotel or vacation rental.
Consider a vacation rental instead of a hotel. This is a controversial topic, and rightfully so, considering the issues of residential displacement that have accompanied (in particular) Airbnb into major tourist destinations. In the last few years, I’ve moved away from vacation rentals and back to hotels as the prices have equalized and the latter offer more creature comforts. But when we made plans to visit Venice with another couple, a shared space became much more economical. For Venice in particular, even the licensed vacation rentals are still noticeably cheaper than hotels - something that’s not true in most other major tourist capitals - and it was a great option for hanging out together when we’d all walked our feet right off, and eating takeaway when one or two of us weren’t feeling energetic enough to go back out for dinner.
Give in to capitalism and shop a little. Murano glass is truly spectacular; you will see plenty of shops carrying the same selection of things (all of which are lovely), but it doesn’t take too much footwork to find some whose pieces are more distinctive. I did the same for my Carnival mask; they are sold everywhere, but any good guidebook can recommend for you the shops that have the best reputation and the longest history. Be prepared to pay for authenticity and craftsmanship.
Visit San Michele, the cemetery island, on your way to or from Murano. It’s exactly what it says on the tin - the island where all Venetians have been buried since the early 1800s (when Napoleon ordered it). A former prison island, it’s both haunting and serene, and is an especially welcome respite from the majority of other tourists, who have neither the time nor the inclination to stop there.
Venice is one of the cities for which the term “bucket list” was invented. There’s really nothing else like it, and for all of its well-publicized challenges, it’s a special and magical place to visit with a fascinating history.
Just make sure to catch those gondolieri before they go home for dinner.
