Europe 2022: Venice

Kelley Bauer
Sep 4, 2022
2 min read

Updated: Sep 19, 2022

Venice, you are spectacular!

Travel Tips: Venice

*Schedule a private water taxi from the airport! No shared taxis.

*Go to some less popular area to get a gondola ride. They will take you to the smaller, less crowded areas of Venice.

We flew to Venice on Sunday, June 19. Mom and I love Italy, but had never been to Venice, so I had researched and scoured the maps for what we should do. Buuuut. For this stop on our trip, I decided a looser itinerary would be best since there weren’t any places we wanted to tour formally, and we only had one full day there. This was a mistake though. The group of five didn’t mesh into a go-with-the-flow gang at all. Instead, everyone wanted to know where were we going?, what’s next?, when were we eating?. Had it just been me and one other person, the fun of exploration of the narrow winding streets would have been relaxing and adventurous. So lesson learned. We still made the best of it!

Our arrival to Venice went smoothly. Waiting for a group water taxi, however, did not go well. We waited for three hours before we finally convinced a water taxi driver to just take us and another woman to our hotels. Evidently, our reservation said there should have been two other people in the taxi with us. What two people? Who knows! But they would not take us without the taxi full. Finally, one of the men working the pick-up helped us to another taxi.

We were pretty pumped to be heading to Italy. Little did we know it would six hours before we actually got to the hotel!

Once at our hotel, we headed out to explore and grab dinner! The winding streets of Venice are no joke! We got lost approximately 20 times in our 48 hours in Venice! Night one was no exception. Fortunately, you can’t wander too far off the course because ultimately you will run into water and have to turn around.

'Taxi stand' and the ride to Venetia.

TOTAL MILES: 5.0

The next day, we woke up to breakfast with an incredible view! We were right on a canal. Like I mentioned, my plan was to walk and explore the streets. We went immediately to the Rialto Bridge area to take a gondola ride. I could have ridden in that gondola all day. It’s amazing how the gondoliers maneuver the narrow canals with motor boats and other gondolas. Our gondolier was really talkative and gave us tons of information. He said they are trained to do this formally in a school. Most gondoliers come from a long line of gondoliers, and each one designs and decorates his own gondola.

Rialto Bridge

After the gondola, I led us to St. Mark’s Square and the Bridge of Sighs. From there, we were to just explore. But we know how that went! All in all, Venice was a place to see. Our hotel was perfection, full of old Venetian style and that canal view.