Venetian Days

My first stop on our Italian tour was to the breathtakingly beautiful city of Venice. It’s an intricate, small, city with so much history and adventure. I’m lucky to have had my friend as my travel companion who could read a map and navigate around the city with ease. Venice can be a bit like a maze because the canals chop up the streets, meaning you’re always having to turn in some different direction.

And yay! Yanna came from the US to come see me!

We arrived in Venice the Saturday before the Holy Week. On Sunday when we were waiting to enter the bell tower, we actually saw a demonstration of people carrying palm leaves for Palm Sunday to enter San Marco’s Basilica. That day we also witnessed many locals donning Renaissance attire to have a celebration of their city. If I’m correct in my thinking, Venetians still think of themselves as a bit different than Italians because it was one of the oldest city states.

Must See

The most popular attraction in Venice is Doge’s Palace, where the Doge lived during Venice’s time as a city-state. Doge is sometimes translated as “duke”, but he was an elected official. We bought tickets for this ahead of time, which is recommended. We wanted to do the Secret Itineraries tour which is a guided tour that takes you into secret rooms, but when we went to book, it was already full … so make sure to plan more than a week or two ahead! The architecture in the palace is fantastic and the rooms are grand. There is also a lot of renaissance artwork to see (yay). And if you’re with your significant other, you may feel the need to start kissing them in the middle of one of the rooms like an older couple decided to do when we were there … awkward.

San Marco’s Basilica is also another big attraction to see. The entrance is free, unless you want to enter a certain part of the basilica, then you have to shell out an extra two euros. You are not allowed to take pictures in the basilica as noted by the sign outside the basilica (NO SELFIE!). For us, we didn’t take a long time walking through the basilica. There are a lot of people that are wandering around, but it is still something cool to see.

One of my personal favorite things we did was taking a tour of the Saint Mark’s Clock Tower. Our tour guide told us that it is the second most famous clock tower in the world, after Big Ben … although I’m not sure about that. It was still super cool and our tour guide was the cutest thing. There are so many intricate pieces to the clock tower. It was the first “digital” clock. It has numbers that move every five minutes to indicate the time. On Epiphany (January 6) and then again 40 days after Easter, the numeral panels are moved and the Magi are put in their place so that the Magi bow to the Virgin and baby as they move on the hour. At the very top of the Clock Tower are two “Moros” (not African, just dark Europeans), who strike the bell on top of the clock tower. The old one strikes the bell two minutes before the hour and the young one strikes the bell two minutes after the hour … can you guess why? I definitely recommend this place. It’s amazing!

Art

With this being Italy, there is no shortage of art to be seen. The first place we went to was the Ca’ d’Oro. It was a bit difficult to find because you have to go down one of the side streets to access the front door. We didn’t reserve tickets ahead of time, like we had with many other places, because the website wasn’t working, but in reality, you don’t need to buy ahead of time. If I’m being honest, this was recommended to us, but I would skip this unless you really love art. It was quite small and there are no incredibly famous paintings here. We also spent extra money on audio guides that didn’t work very well, so we just read the sheets of paper that told us a bit about the painting/sculptures in the room. The one thing I will say about the Ca’ d’Oro, though, is that it has a gorgeous terrace that looks out over the canal. We went there around sunset, so it created a great space for taking some beautiful pictures.

We also visited the Gallerie dell’Accademia. This is the location of the Vitruvian Man by Leonardo di Vinci, but it isn’t always on display to the public, which was the case in our visit … so no Vitruvian man for us! The art was definitely better here and there were several famous ones, but for me, art can be quite boring (so I took pictures of the paintings and made funny captions for them). The tickets for this one are more expensive than the Ca’ d’Oro, but it is still worthwhile.

Food

Venice is not as known for their food as in other parts of the country. It follows the Mediterranean diet more, with lots of fish and shellfish. Personally for me, I only eat shrimp, so I stayed away from this. But I would like to highlight two places we went to.

In the Piazza de San Marco, Caffè Florian is a popular, posh, and expensive place that is famous throughout the world. It opened in 1720 and has been in continuous operation since, making it the oldest cafe in the world. It’s a very cute cafe, but be prepared to shell out some serious money. I think for a croissant and a cappuccino, we payed €14 per person.

If you want some really good, really cheap pasta, I must recommend you to Dal Moro. It was recommended to me by a friend and it was worth it. All the pasta is made in the store and it’s fresh. You can order the pasta the way you want it, with many customizable options. The staff are super friendly and really enthusiastic. The Koreans in there took a selfie with the staff! Be warned though, it’s a very small space, but you get a lot of pasta for very little money. My friend was so tempted to go back for a second night!

Also, if you are an adventurous eater, my friend would like to recommend you eat black spaghetti … where the spaghetti is cooked in squid ink. I personally do not like it, but I am a picky eater. She loved it!

Transportation

You won’t find a single car in this city! It is completely pedestrian friendly. We walked almost everywhere. They have a bus-like boat service that takes riders around to the different islands, but the only time we took it was to get to the train station, which was far away from our hotel.

Getting from the airport to the main part of the city is a bit tricky. There are water taxis you can pay €100 to take you, or you can do like us and take the ferry. It does take about an hour or more, depending on where you are going, but it’s one of the easier methods of getting into the city.

And how can I go to Venice and not talk about the gondolas. You will feel super touristy on them, but when in Venice, right? It was quite pricey – €80 together, but it is a unique experience. I did feel a bit awkward passing the couples in boats when me and my friend were chilling together on the gondola, but it was alright. My favorite part was the serene feeling and getting to take pictures of the city from a unique angle. Our gondola driver was pretty cute, too. One of the families that passed us was laughing because he was texting and gondola-ing.

And the rest?

There are many things to do in Venice. We only spent about two days there, but some people spend much longer! There are several churches and cathedrals to walk around. I’ve seen way to many churches in my time in Europe, but my friend was enchanted with even the smallest ones.

There’s also the Bell Tower in the Piazza San Marco. It costs €8 to take the elevator to the top. It gives a good view over the entire city, but I think it was a bit pricey for us to take an elevator up there for only fifteen or twenty minutes.

Be careful in the Piazza San Marco. It’s super touristy and the food there is incredibly expensive. It’s so much better to go off on one of the side streets to eat food. There are also a lot of guys trying to sell you things there.

Venice is a city that everyone must see at least once, whether it be for the scenic canals, all the cool bridges, the designer shopping, or the art. It is a city that you MUST see!