Speaking of amazing photographic settings, Venice comes up high on the list. The historic part of Venice has a population of around about 60,000 permanently. The bigger area has about 250,000 but the city gets between 50,000 and 60,000 tourists a day. It’s manically busy and these tips I will give you will tell you how you make most of your trip to Venice.
Plan When you Come
About 500 cruise ships come to visit every single year, and that is really when Venice gets really packed. The city gets packed with cruise passengers, lots of tourists, and many more. One thing to do is to look at the time of the year, so you can come in March which is really before the cruise even start or in October when the cruise season is kind of ramping up. You probably will find it a bit quieter. One thing I would suggest you do if you are planning to visit is to take a look at a site like cruisetimetables.com and search for Venice. That will tell you how many cruise ships will be in the town when you are here and that gives a sense of how packed the city will be. Also, it gets very busy on weekends as lots of people come to Venice for romantic weekends. So if you can, try to avoid the weekend.
Avoid Tourist Traps
One challenge of Venice is it has a massive tourist trap. This is because so many visitors come into Venice and it has built up lots of tourist traps. When you are in some big tourist centers like St. Mark’s square be extremely careful because you might find having a round of coffees could cost you 100 Euros. This is because a lot of those places will charge you up to 25 Euros simply for sitting down that’s before you have even ordered your coffee. So before you go into any place check if they will charge you for simply being there.
Beware Souvenir Rip-Offs
The two most popular souvenirs in Venice are Murano glass and masks. However, again be supremely careful because a lot of those you will find are basically made in China. Again, there are lots of masks which are really inexpensive that are not the original ones. If you genuinely want to buy Italian made Murano glass and beautiful Italian mask you will pay a lot of money. If you really want to buy Murano glass, you can head out to the Murano Islands then you can be absolutely sure it is genuine.
Gondola Rides
Another thing that people like to do when they come to Venice is going on a Gondola ride. However, be very careful because this could end up costing you a lot of money. So only go on a Gondola ride if you really want to be able to pick it off the bucket list. It is likely to cost you around 80 Euros for about a 40 minute drive and then it goes up in increments every 20 minutes circles costing you another 40 Euros. The price goes up very significantly after 7 o’clock at night when it becomes 100 Euros, so you will probably pay 120 Euros and again you have increments around about 40 Euros for every 20 minutes after that. The great alternative to doing a Gondola ride which personally I prefer is the water buses because it costs around 20 Euros for a 24-hour pass and they have great activities lined up. It goes down the Grand Canal and it can take you pretty much everywhere you want to go. Venice is an amazing place to visit but you need to be a bit smart to avoid the many tourist traps in this city.
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