Venice travel guide and things to do: 20 reasons to visit

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This was published 8 years ago

Venice travel guide and things to do: 20 reasons to visit

By Anthony Dennis
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1 SEE THE GRAND CANAL It's likely the almost four-kilometre Grand Canal, Venice's monumental palazzo-lined watery main street, will be a prominent feature of your visit. Even when viewed from a crowded vaporetto, or waterbus (see below), the Grand Canal is magnificent, but it's best experienced by boat late at night when it's at its most serene and blissfully free of the water traffic that dominates it by day. See venice-tourism.com.

2 EAT CICCHETTI​ These are Venice's tapas or, perhaps more accurately, the irresistible pintxos finger food of San Sebastian, in the Basque country of Spain. Bite-sized morsels, often featuring seafood, a Venetian staple, cicchetti can be consumed throughout the day, although late afternoon or early evening are perfect times to tuck in. You can order cicchetti everywhere from a cafe or bar to a proper restaurant, where, accompanied by an excellent Veneto region wine, you can easily make a satisfying meal of it. Above all, affordable cicchetti are a good way to save money on food without going hungry. See venice-tourism.com.

3 RIDE A VAPORETTO Your first act on arriving in Venice should be to buy a pass for the vaporetti, the essential, and oft-crowded, ferry service operating up and down the Grand Canal and outlying islands. A one-day pass starts at $30, rising to $90 for seven days, and can be bought from manned booths or machines outside Santa Lucia railway station. Remember to validate your pass before boarding each vaporetto or you risk a steep fine. See actv.avmspa.it.

Venice viewed from St. Mark's Campanile on famous Basilica Santa Maria della Salute.

Venice viewed from St. Mark's Campanile on famous Basilica Santa Maria della Salute.Credit: iStock

4 DINE AT OSTERIA ENOTECA SAN MARCO Thanks to its surfeit of predicable, old-fashioned "turistico" restaurants, Venice is not ranked among Italy's best food cities. Happily, a generation of younger restaurateurs has emerged in recent years. One of the best products of this recent trend is Osteria Enoteca San Marco. Its menu delivers a refreshingly contemporary take on Venetian cuisine. Dine in the cosy restaurant under exposed timber beams or at the bar fashioned from old timber wine boxes. See osteriasanmarco.it.

5 STROLL DORSODURO​ Despite being a sestieri​, or borough, of Venice, with some of the city's most important cultural institutions, such as the Gallerie dell'Accademia​ and Peggy Guggenheim Museum, Dorsoduro remains an under-visited area compared with the likes of the over-trammelled San Marco. To Venice's south-west, Dorsoduro is the perfect off-piste place to escape the crowds, being one of the few areas left in Venice where you can commune with the locals. You can download some excellent (and free) self-guided walking tours of Dorsoduro's cultural attractions from the website of the City of Venice. See veneziaunica.it; gallerieaccademia.org; guggenheim.org

6 WANDER RIALTO One of the liveliest and most appealing parts of Venice, the Rialto is the city's seven-centuries-old food market, where seafood is ominant among its canal-lined stalls. Get there early in the morning to best experience this bustling place. You'll notice that one of the most recognisable and cherished symbols of Venice – the exquisite Renaissance Ponte di Rialto (Rialto Bridge) – is undergoing its first restoration. The whole exercise has been funded to the tune of $7.4 million by the owner of one of Italy's leading fashion houses, in exchange for the erection of a huge billboard for one of its brands on the side of the covered bridge.

7 EAT AL MERCA A classic hole-in-the-wall eatery, dating to the 1920s and in Campo Bella Vienna around the Rialto Market area, Al Merca does nothing much more than serve affordable panini, meatballs and booze, all consumed standing up in the square or seated on any available surface. But what it does in its closet-like space, it does brilliantly. On the other side of the bar, where a trio of rather hip 20-something Italian males run the show, all types of Italian smallgoods are constantly being shaved as ingredients for the panini displayed in an old glass case fronting the square.

8 DRINK SPRITZ In a civilised city such as Venice there's nothing more civilising than pausing to savour the city's favourite tipple. Spritz is a Venetian institution (even though other Italian cities claim ownership of it) and a relative bargain at around $5 a glass. An aperitif made from Aperol, the Italian liqueur, white wine or prosecco, and sparkling mineral or soda water, it's served at every restaurant, bar and cafe in Venice. See venice-tourism.com.

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9 STAY HOTEL CANAL GRANDE There are superior, more glamorous and more luxurious Venetian lodgings than Hotel Canal Grande. But few are more welcoming and well located while being relatively affordable. The hotel is just across the Grand Canal from the Santa Lucia railway station, where most visitors arrive in Venice (if you have a lot of baggage hire one of the luggage porters, who charge about $7 a case, to haul your chattels over the difficult-to-navigate stepped bridge close to the hotel). See hotelcanalgrande.it.

10 SPOT BOATS Until you visit Venice, it's hard to conceive how totally reliant the city is on its watery thoroughfares. Cars and other vehicles can come only as far as the carparks near Santa Lucia station, meaning that everything else, from ambulances, fire engines, police, taxis, couriers and more must travel in boats along the Grand Canal and its tributaries. Then, there are some craft that are stationary, such as the wonderful fruit and vegetable boat moored near Ponte dei Pugni in Dorsoduro, which has been operating for nearly 70 years.

11 DRINK CAFFE FLORIAN Venice's most historic cafe, having opened in the early 18th century, is also one of its biggest rip-offs, with a cappuccino, consumed at an inside table, costing the equivalent of $14. But in Venice, resistance is futile. Consider a visit to Caffe Florian as akin to a pilgrimage. Try to get there early in the morning, when the tourist masses are still slumbering and the locals are up and about for their first espresso of the day. See caffeflorian.com.

12 VISIT CHURCHES St Mark's Basilica is just one of about 200 churches in Venice, a remarkable number for a relatively small city. Many places of worship contain masterpieces by the most celebrated Venetian artists, such as Tintoretto, the 16th-century Renaissance painter. One is Chiesa della Salute (Church of the Salute) in Dorsoduro. Built in 1631, the church features Tintoretto's Marriage Feast at Cana, as well as a number of works by Titian, another member of the 16th-century Venetian school. When you visit churches such as Chiesa della Salute, bring plenty of coins so you can operate the automated user-pays lighting systems that illuminate the paintings. See venice-tourism.com.

13 DINE NARANZARIA Naranzaria is a gorgeous two-storey eatery in Rialto, with Grand Canal-side al fresco tables in the warmer weather. The best table indoors is an upstairs corner affair with a porthole-style window looking out across the Grand Canal. The delicious dishes, which include cod mousse and tuna lasagnetta, are reasonably priced, as are the wines. Check out the centuries-old graffiti on the exposed stone wall in the upstairs part of the restaurant. See naranzaria.it.

14 VISIT JEWISH GHETTO One of the most fascinating sestieri, or boroughs, of Venice, the Jewish Ghetto will be 500 years old at the end of this month. A series of events to commemorate the anniversary and to foster the Jewish heritage of the area, includes exhibitions, concerts and even performances of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice performed in English. A major exhibition, Venice: the Jews and Europe, 1516-2016, opens at the Doge's Palace on June 19 and runs until November 13. See veniceghetto500.org.

15 EXPERIENCE GONDOLAS Before you commit to a near-mandatory ride on a gondola, for centuries the classic form of Venetian transport, consider whether it's really worth the exorbitant $120 (serenading extra) for a 35-minute experience. If the answer is "yes", then go right ahead but be sure to tell your gondolier to concentrate on the inner canals rather than the frenetic Grand Canal. One way of reducing the cost of hiring a gondola is to share one of the boats with other tourists or travelling companions and split the cost. See venice-tourism.com.

16 VISIT CAMPO SANTA MARGHERITA Until 1500 or so, there were few paved public spaces, with all the communal squares being grassy fields. The word "campo" itself means field, but these days at Campo Santa Margherita in Dorsoduro, the only grass in existence is the illicit variety possibly smoked by the students of the nearby university. Unlike Piazza San Marco (St Mark's Square), the cafe-ringed Campo Santa Margherita is a place for locals and is all the better for it. See veneziaunica.it.

17 RIDE TRAGHETTO If you want to experience a gondola but don't want to pay the steep impost for one, try a traghetto. These are the gondola ferries that criss-cross the Grand Canal along the sections where there are no bridges. Favoured by Venetians who want to dodge the tourist crowds, a ride on traghetto costs less than a cup of coffee at an ordinary Venetian cafe. Remember, however, that due to the short nature of the trip, that you are required to stand, not sit (it's not as hard as it may seem). See venice-tourism.com.

18 DINE OSTERIA DA CARLA Hidden away down a short laneway near Osteria Enoteca San Marco (look out for the big wine barrel), Osteria da Carla is another cool and contemporary Venice dining option. Take you pick from the large variety of cicchetti on display or order a proper dish from the blackboard menu. The Veneto-based wine list is excellent, with the young, English-speaking staff happy to advise on a suitable selection. See osteriadacarla.it

19 GO WINTER Winter, more specifically January, is commonly regarded as the best time to visit Venice. There are blessedly fewer tourists (though still more than most cities) and fewer queues, meaning that the Venetians are considerably more relaxed than in the high seasons of summer. Winter is also the time for Carnevale, Venice's famed festival of masks and costumes. See carnevale.venezia.it.

20 GET LOST Here's one city where there is absolutely no shame in getting hopelessly lost. Feel free to toss away the map (or the GPS) for a bit and just wander aimlessly, preferably as far from your fellow tourists as you can. If you get lost, as you surely will, there's always someone around to point you in the direction of home. Venice's population may have sunk to below 60,000 these days but there are plenty of quiet pockets of the city where you can commune with the locals.

Anthony Dennis travelled to Venice as a guest of Railbookers (railbookers.com) and Qantas (​qantas.com.au).

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