Romantic Venice

The Marco Polo airport is super easy to get through. Completely covered and air conditioned to get you from airport to water transportation. You no longer have to walk outdoors schlepping your luggage. As soon as you get your luggage, get a FREE cart and push it to the boat loading dock. Take the Alilaguna to Venice to your closest location of lodging. It is the cheapest way to get there. We traveled to the San Zaccaria stop in Castello. It took an hour to get there, but it was really enjoyable. It costs 25€ each way even with a discount. A private water taxi can run over 100€. Book your round trip Alilaguna round trip tickets to and from Marco Polo airport on venicelink.com. Spend time in the outlying islands like Cannerejo, Castello,San Marco because they leave you with a wonderful feeling of Venice. St Mark's Square is AMAZING. I loved the clock tower where the time changed every five minutes in big bold squares. The Basilica and Doges Palace are well worth a two hour guided tour. PAY FOR THE SKIP THE LINE ticket unless you enjoy standing in long lines in the heat in September. There are many many people on tours so be patient. Many languages and many habits of other nationalities might not be similar to yours. Patience and a smile go a long way. Hot and very humid in September. Much like weather in the Southern US in the summer. Many families in Venice leave in July and August because of the terrible heat. After being there the first few days of Sept., I completely get why they would head off the island. Be prepared to walk....and walk...and walk. Venice is a walking city... The first day we were there, we had about 6 hours to see the city. In those 6 hours, we walked 5.2 miles according to my Fitbit. If you are not a walking type person, you need to prepare before going. I can walk 2 miles a day, but our second day was over 7 miles. Non stop in the heat. And you won't find a place to sit unless you pay for it. More on that later. The best investment I made was a twin pack of little fans that plug into the power port of my iPhone. Those fans SAVED me in the heat and places that had no breeze or A/C. I found them on Amazon. Don't know if they have them for Samsung or other models. The first day we booked a 4 hour food tour. IT WAS FABULOUS. We met 8 family members from SanFran who were all so delightful. Alan and Maya were amazing hosts as the introduced us to Venice Food Bites. I would recommend doing this your first or second night. They also have lunch tours. I would vote for dinner partially because we started in daylight and ended in complete darkness and quietness of Venice. No car horns... no sirens....no alcohol induced people slurring their words or wandering the streets. Sheer magic and we had a full moon every night we were there. Do, dogs and more dogs. They are welcomed more easily than people in some places. Really. It's very nice to see if you are a dog lover. Every kind of dog too. Maltese, Doberman, German Shepard, poodles of all sizes and colors, pugs, the largest Boxers I have seen and a Chinese crested terrier. The beautiful thing was that never once did I see or hear the slightest snip, yip or bark among the dogs. These were not "official service dogs" just to make that point. They were house pets. They were welcome in shops, restaurants and bars and probably the grocery store. They were never turned away. Unlike us which brings me to my next point. THERE ARE NO PLACES TO SIT AND REST IF YOU NEED TO TAKE A BREAK. IF YOU EAT INDOORS WITH AIR CONDITIONERS you will be charged extra. There are no seats, benches, stools, etc to stop and rest. ONLY eating establishments have seating. And if you " sit in a seat you need to be ready to eat or drink." You can stay as long as you would like but you have to buy something. We were enjoying a croissant for breakfast as we waited for our Basilica tour. We found a small space close by and sat on a small stone ledge to eat our food from a paper sack. We hadn't been there 5 minutes and one of Venice's finest police officers told us that we could not eat there. We couldn't sit in a public place... outdoors and eat a croissant. So we were exited out " of the outdoors" to go find another outdoor place to eat. That was the weirdest part of the whole trip. Gondolas....they are beautifully made and the gondoliers have beautiful voices. It looks very romantic and I'm sure it is, but nothing feels romantic to me in 85 degree weather with 90% humidity. Plus they can be €125 for 30 minutes. If you come to Venice, that's what most people think you have to do. We found a terrific alternative involving two water trips. The first is a tour of the Grande Canal on a small motorboat. It takes an hour and we paid 50€ per couple. You HAVE to do this to see the architecture over CENTURIES of existence. I took over 200 pics in an hour. I couldn't get enough of the fronts of buildings, churches,museums,grand homes etc. We found the best deal on venicelink.com. On another night, take the 1.5 hour PANORAMIC SUNSET cruise along many of the Venetian islands. This was on the top three things that I loved the most. Gelato was always my favorite thing😉. Very romantic. Our tickets were 80€ per couple. We spent 2.5 hours seeing Venice from the water for 130€ for both of us versus 110€ for 30 minutes in a gondola. Venicelink.com is where to book your panoramic cruise too. Venice dinner meals starts around 7:30 or 8:00. If you are in a rush for dinner, find a diversion until later. We found our diversion in delicious PROSECCO by the bottle for 5€ at the COOP, their grocery store. Super cheap prices on everything and we found a delicious Italian beer, Peroni. Just wander Venice and use a phone app to help get you where you are going. If we hadn't used Google Maps, we would probably still be there. 🙂

Venice is really beautiful, but unfortunately we experienced extremely rude treatment here, which pretty much ruined our visit. We were extremely polite to everyone we met, but got the very distinct impression that Americans weren't welcome, and although they had to "put up" with us they really didn't want to. I have traveled a lot, and am always polite in other places and in different cultural settings. Historically, I been treated well no matter which country I visit. This was not the case in Venice. I won't go back to spend my hard earned money in a place which does not welcome me. Unfortunate.

My daughter recently graduated from high school. As a gift, we took a girls trip to Italy and visited many places, including Rome, Capri, Naples, and Venice. I can honestly say that the people in Venice were the rudest people we encountered. Not just sort of rude, incredibly rude. The city itself is gorgeous, which is why I rated Venice two stars instead of one. I have never been treated so badly, and for doing nothing but being there as a tourist! I was kind and polite (truly) and spent my money there, but it was very obvious Venetian natives can't stand tourists. While this is understandable, there is no need to be unkind, and it left a really bad taste in my mouth...unfortunately.