Top 10 Things to Do in Venice

If your trip is short and the days you can spend are fewer than the fingers of your left hand, you definitely want to follow our tips about the top 10 things to do in Venice.

1. Take a waterbus along the Grand Canal. The €7.50 fare is absolutely worth the cruise, especially if you take one of the older crafts that have seats in the front. The view is sensational, so bring your camera and a pair of binoculars to have close-range views of the buildings on the city’s main avenue.

2. Piazza San Marco is the salotto of the city, her reception room. Spend some time loitering and, after that, visit the Basilica and the Doge’s Palace. Their unparalleled architecture is a curtain-raiser about the splendid past of the city when she was a powerful nation with a mighty navy.

3. Visit the Fenice, one of the most important playhouses for the opera. Attend a show for which you can pick from the high-priced stalls to the inexpensive but not uncomfortable seats of the two top rows. Alternatively, join a guided tour.

4. Take a gondola tour along the smaller canals. While the usual tours make you see what you can detect from a waterbus, cruising the narrow canals gives a taste of what a city built on water is. Approach the gondolier at the official stalls: the officially fixed price is €80 (or €100 at night) for a 40-minute tour but you may haggle.

5. Taste the cicchetti, snacks to be washed down with a glass of cask wine. Large is the variety but some classics are found everywhere: baccalà mantecato (creamed salted cod), sarde in saor (sardines seasoned with sweet and sour onions), nervetti (veal cartilages boiled and served in vinegar and oil), bovoletti (sea snails), ovi duri (boiled eggs), and moscardini (freshly boiled small octopuses).

6. Venice abounds in museums. The Gallerie dell’Accademia keep masterpieces of the Venetian paintings such as Tempest by Giorgione but other masters like Bosch and Leonardo are also there. Another suggestion is the Peggy Guggenheim Collection hosted in a palazzo on the Grand Canal with artworks by Dalí, Ernst, Klee, Picasso, and Magritte.

7. Although being a city on the water, spending some time in Venice implies a lot of walking. Wandering aimlessly is such a pleasure that you will forget the passing time. A great walk goes from Riva degli Schiavoni, just in front of the Doge’s Palace, all the way down to Sant’Elena. Once there, stop in the shade of the trees and have a drink at Vecia Gina.

8. Island-hopping can be easily done even on a shoestring budget. With a €20 daily waterbus ticket, you can visit Murano with its glass factories, Burano with its fancy-colored houses (and have a rich risotto at Il Gatto Nero), the Lido with its strip of beautiful beaches and the pleasant liberty houses, Sant’Erasmo with its unique tranquility or you can venture to nice Chioggia.

9. The Jewish District is the oldest Jewish ghetto as it dates back to 1516. Today it is an agreeable area to roam, quite close to the railway station. There you can visit the museum and join a guided tour to two of the five synagogues still existing.

10. There are quite a few occasions to party over the course of the year and the following are the most important. In February, it’s Carnival time: two weeks with parties and open-air shows ending on Shrove Tuesday. The feast of the Redentore is on the third weekend of July with a traditional dinner outdoors and the fireworks display in front of St. Mark’s. On the first Sunday of September, the magnificent historical Regatta is held with a parade along the Grand Canal commemorating the wealth and pomp of the Most Serene Republic.