Trip Info for Italy

It's hard to see it all and we had just 9 days so we chose our personal top favorite cities to see. On the list for next time: Florence, Cinque Terre, and Lake Como.

There was not a direct flight from Chicago to Venice. We stopped in Philadelphia- American Airlines. I've heard there are some direct flights in the summer. I would avoid summer because it was pretty hot when we were there in May (unusually hot though, they said) and also pretty crowded. It's hard to know when to go then if you are planning to take your kids. 

We left on a Thursday afternoon and arrived on a Friday morning. We rented the following Air BnB:

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/43667092?guests=1&adults=1&s=67&unique_share_id=a2572855-fece-416a-b95b-95a1fae95b64

I wanted a canal view and I couldn't find a hotel room available on a canal (we were planning a bit last minute). This was a nice, spacious Air bnb on a canal (I just didn't like the shower- really hot then really cold, very small). The host helped arrange for us a private transfer/boat from the airport. Pricey (150 euro one way) but we were confused on how the boats worked and how to get into our air bnb from the canal and we were traveling all night so we chose to do it this way for our sanity. Also keep in mind rolling your suitcases across cobble stone. If you are not going straight to your hotel/air bnb via a boat then you might have to be lugging those suitcases on foot A LONG WAY. And ours were BIG. I've heard bad stories in my travel groups. You can take a boat yourself all the way from the airport if you want to save money, it's inexpensive, but could be rough (seasick), takes longer (maybe 45 mins to 1 hr) and then you have to get to your location in Venice from the ferry dock (ok if you pack light and you are savvy with the boats and lugging your bags). I also recently read that the area of Venice where you get off the airport boat shuttle is a hot bed for pickpockets so watch out. 

Venice is confusing to navigate and it took us a day or two to get the data working on our phone (change the settings to ROAM and have the international plan). It's actually a lot bigger island/s than I thought. People say to "get lost in Venice." We did and it was interesting, we found the slummy areas of Venice and discovered where real Venetians lived, but after awhile you just want to get home. There are no cabs, bikes, or anything to get you to your home. Just your feet or a boat. Also keep in mind that there are only 4 bridges across the Grand Canal so you may have to go a bit out of your way to go home. Or there are boats that will take you across the grand canal for 2 euros (but only at certain spots and not later at night). We had to go over the Rialto bridge a lot and it is very crowded. I think this is why Venice gets a bad reputation 1) the beaten path is very beaten 2) It's easy to get lost 3) Crowded 4) Most people don't want to walk 11 miles in one day. Maybe we would've done better if we figured out the boat service on the Grand Canal but we were more trying to go across the canal vs up and down it. I read the Rick Steves guide book and then bought a detailed map on his advice. That was not a good idea. In the words of our tour guide each little island has similar sounding street names since they all have a church. Plus the names on the map were so small you couldn't read them anyway. There is one big main pedestrian path called the ACV or something (similar to the boat system) so once you figure that path out, then use your phone to get to your location off the main path. Once I had the directions on my phone it would feed to my apple watch where to turn which was cool. Then I pulled my phone out only in case more details are needed. Sometimes there were mouse maze like areas and it was best just to follow the crowd, even if it seemed like a small little alley, otherwise you are probably going down a dead end! Here's a helpful blog explaining how to figure Venice out if you are interested in all the little details. One street name means dead end, I wish we had known!  Becoming Italian Word by Word: Walking Venice in the Italian Language (typepad.com).

Once we got the hang of things we enjoyed very nice inexpensive meals and were able to get home stress-free and relaxed. The streets off the main path are breath taking and it is fun to soak it all in. The off the beaten path tours were helpful to see the quaint areas you might miss.

In the afternoon we did a gondola ride and toured the Doge's Palace. Our first evening we did an air bnb experience of bacari tastings https://www.airbnb.com/experiences/208326?guests=1&adults=1&s=67&unique_share_id=39d5ef8e-ebd1-4ee6-b91b-b2861d9e74d9

Saturday morning we did a photo tour of beautiful spots around Venice: https://www.airbnb.com/experiences/763713?guests=1&adults=1&s=67&unique_share_id=3a70966b-9411-489a-9fb0-8655b5a75e8d

We just got our photos back, this was fun. I wish we had waited to do our gondola ride for this photography tour, which is what he suggested, but I missed that. Gondola rides are expensive 80 euro - 120 euro so you only want to do it once. Over by the Bridge of Sighs/San Marco square the rides are 120 euro during the day to see the main sights/40 minute tour (this was not exlained to us and we thought we were getting ripped off). Otherwise they are 80 euro during the day from other spots and 120 euro in the evening. By San Marco square you get to see the most touristy bridges but the gondoliers are a bit jaded there. Our photographer (Devin) recommended a great gondolier with an awesome tweaked out boat, maybe we should've done that instead but I was excited to see the bridge of sighs on a gondola!! I've heard it's more romantic to do your gondola ride in the evening. Too many choices!

In the afternoon we did a history tour off the beaten track with Riccardo. He was very good and explained things thoroughly, with pictures. 

https://www.airbnb.com/experiences/244737?guests=1&adults=1&s=67&unique_share_id=16662f0b-19a2-4429-808c-f974f6e696a7

He can be found on IG @shooting_different and does photography tours as well. More than a few of the tour guides were depressed from the loss of income due to Covid lockdowns. I think it hit them pretty bad and they said that the Italian government did not give them any funds to help them through. [EDITED: I met a man that worked as a chef in Venice and he assured me that the government must've given them some funds during covid- not their full salary, but maybe 75-85% of their salary.] A lot of our guides had master degrees and were well educated.

Our guide from the bacari/chichetti tour booked us a meal at Osteria Mocenigo for Saturday night and we thought we got a good value, lots of wine for cheap (side story below), and the food was really good. Plus they gave us 10% off since our guide booked it for us. Dinner bookings don't start until 7 pm. It's less crowded in the evening in Venice.

Side story on the wine at Oseteria Mocenigo. We asked the waiter how much is .25 l?? He showed us an amount which was about 10% of our wine glass. So we ordered the .5 l and then out comes two carafes, one for John, one for me! Wow, for 8 euros. We were over served here! It was funny trying to walk home after that. We came across a big party/gathering in a courtyard. We didn't stay. I read that you get the best deal with the house wine and it's usually very good, this was true for us.

On Sunday we had a wonderful tour to the islands of Torcello, Burano (lace), and Murano (glass). The ferry boat left close by to our air bnb. We were debating doing this and I'm so glad we did! I think it's a must when visiting Venice.

https://www.airbnb.com/experiences/507349?guests=1&adults=1&s=67&unique_share_id=4e1626ab-ee88-4c52-877e-bbaeb29550cd
Torcello was the first island and we saw the Michelin star restaurant on the Stanley Tucci CNN show. The restaurant on the show is Venissa, on the island of Mazzorba (they are all right next to each other). For the foodies, there is a hotel there if you want to stay on this island. Torcello only has 20 people living there. These islands were inhabited before the main island of Venice with a lot of historical artifacts on Torcello (5th century stuff)- a church, a tower, our guide said something about invasions by famous conquerors. I'm going to have read more about the history, I had trouble understanding our guide with his accent. I was excited by the lace making store on Burano and we bought some towels there, that place felt magical. We got to meet the youngest lace maker and saw how she makes the lace. Seeing how "young" she was made me worry who was going to carry on the lace making tradition!  Everything here was glorious but $$$. Pictures of celebrities on the walls. They gave us a receipt in an envelope to drop into the box at the Global Blue office at the airport. We did this and you get 22% tax vat back from your purchase! It was a lot easier than expected. The office wasn't even open, I dropped it in and got the credit back to my CC. I didn't have to fill anything out- they did all the pre work for me at the store. At the glass factory on Murano we saw a really interesting demonstration on glass blowing as well. Lots of Venetian glass chandeliers. These were very expensive. It made me have more appreciation for the ones I saw in hotels. In the gift shop you can get cute little ornaments and earrings for reasonable prices. Our tour guide was very enthusiastic and funny but sometimes I had trouble understanding his English (the others in our group did too) and I really wanted to know what he was saying. 

When we got back to Venice we walked through the historic Jewish neighborhood.

Adding a Venice hotel recommendation. I was going through our pictures and I took a picture of a very charming looking hotel with a nice garden. We did not see the inside, so read tripadvisor reviews but I would look into this place for next time because it looked adorable. Historical dwelling Palazzo Abadessa Official Site | 4 star hotel in Venice.  The Gritti Palace is the most famous hotel in Venice but it looks to cost $$$$- this is where Stanley Tucci stayed on his CNN show.

In my FB Italy travel group several people say they do not like Venice. Their reasons are "too touristy, feels like a theme park, it's not real, real people don't live there, too crowded." My feelings are they did not get off the beaten path because we loved it. It is authentic, it was built 500 plus years ago. I think staying at our Air BnB on the canal helped our experience. We saw real people every day walking to their homes with their dogs (not on leash, but there are no cars so it's safe). We saw kids on their scooters, kids playing ball, kids walking to school, university students, a few homeless people. One kid was subtly bullying another kid and John and I were wanting to intervene but didn't know how and the moment passed quickly. It's good to walk around the non crowded parts, take tours from real Venetians. If we had more time there I would've liked to have visited the art museums, gone to the opera, gone to more restaurants off the beaten path, taken a tour of the Jewish neighborhood (we walked through but we needed a guide). I loved to just sit and look at the boats passing on the canal. It would be great to get a site seeing boat ride through the canals (more than just a gondola ride), to see the little canals. Our water taxi from the airport was so much fun. We also enjoyed stopping at the corner cafe and eating Cicchetti or gelato. Cicchetti are little pieces of bread with interesting things on top and only 2 euro a piece (at our spot, maybe a little bit more other places). You can have 2-4 for lunch or for a little snack. They are perfect. Walking on our way home there was a little nail salon in a home with a sign on the window (I wish I went!), there was always laundry hanging out to dry. So many comforters hanging to dry in Venice and in the Amalfi coast area! It made me think I wasn't washing my comforters enough. A lot of tourists come just for the day to Venice and one guide told us they were thinking about making a limit to the number of day visitors and once it passed a certain number make them pay a fee to control the crowds. I felt the tourists there were mainly Italian and a few from other European countries. We met a few Americans on our Venetian tours and a couple from California at a restaurant. When we went to Positano it felt like everyone we ran into was American. There are a lot less people on the island of Venice in the evening.