Venice Travel Guide

Venice Travel Guide

Venice is truly a magical city and unlike anywhere else in the world! The windy paths across the thousands of canals make for the perfect place to spend a day getting lost.

Venice is a great city for relaxing, and has less museums and famous historical sites to see than other Italian cities, which for me, is a great break from cities like Rome and Florence where you spend the whole day running around trying to see everything. Venice is made for wandering & relaxing!

Jump To:

• *Backpacks & Bubbly – Top Picks for Drinks With A View*
• Where to Stay in Venice
• What to do in Venice
• Best Restaurants in Venice
• Best Day Trips from Venice
• How to get to Venice
• Getting Around Venice
• How Many Days to Spend in Venice
• Safety for Solo Female Travelers in Venice
• Top Blog Posts – Venice

Disclaimer: This article contains some links where I earn commission through booking. There is no extra cost to you, and I only recommend things I’ve used and love or places I’ve stayed and enjoyed!

Where to Stay in Venice

I highly recommend staying somewhere easily walkable from the train station or the main bus station depending on how you are arriving in Venice & how much luggage you have. Google Maps may make something seem like a short walk, but Google Maps is so inaccurate in Venice & even when it’s right it can’t account for all the bridges you’ll need to cross and how many extra steps that entails.

There are tons of hotels on either side of the Grand Canal where the train station is located, if you stay on the same side as the train station, you won’t need to cross any bridges and if you stay on the other side of the canal across from the train station you’ll only need to cross one.

Venice is not accessible to cars so there is no way to get to your hotel by car. They do have luggage services where someone will take your luggage by cart to your hotel, but this is pricy (up to 50 euro a bag)

If you stay somewhere deeper in Venice you can also take a water taxi or public water transport, but private water taxis are incredibly expensive and the public transport is really hard to take with luggage due to how crowded it always is.

For these reasons, I always stay on the Grand Canal near the station. My two favorite hotels are: CHC BW Continental or Hotel Carlton on the Grand Canal. Both offer outdoor dining and bar options that I highly recommend and are easily accessible from the train.

For Hotel Carlton you’ll need to cross the main bridge over the Grand Canal. Both hotels are 4 star hotels, so they can be a bit on the pricy side, but you can also find tons of hotel options across budgets in that area.

Best Restaurants in Venice

There are so many restaurants in Venice, so compiling a full list is almost impossible, but I always like to share places I enjoyed and would return back to on another trip!

Cocai at the CHC Continental Hotel

This restaurant had the best patio on the Grand Canal and offered such great views I wouldn’t have even minded if the food wasn’t great, but the food was delicious. Try the lasagna! It was some of the best I had in Italy

La Lista

If you’re looking for a great spot to grab pizza La Lista had amazing pizza options! Highly recommend

How to Get to Venice

By Plane

Venice has its own international airport. It’s located about 20 minutes outside of the city, and is not connected to the train system, so you will either need to take a taxi to Venice or catch the bus.

The bus is operated by ACTV, you’ll want to take Bus #5. It brings you to Piazalle Roma, just across the bridge from Venice’s main train station on the Grand Canal. It runs approximately every 15 minutes – you can find a detailed timetable here

By Train

The main train station, Venezia Santa Lucia, is located right in the heart of Venice and is easily accessible to all other major cities in Italy

Getting Around Venice

The canals, lack of cars and windy streets are all thins that give Venice it’s charm, but they also make it difficult to get around. Venice is pedestrian traffic only, so you won’t be able to grab a taxi. It’s also filled with bridges that require many steps, making it not the most accessible place. If you need to take transportation the public boat system is referred to as the Vaporetto.

The Vaporetto runs along most of the main canals of Venice (this does not include the small, windy canals comprising most of the city.) It can be pricy to take the Vaporetto, but it’s cheaper than taking a private water taxi. A one way ticket will cost 7.50 Euro, but you have the opiton to buy day and multi-day passes if you know you’ll be taking the Vaporetto several times. It’s 30 Euro for one day and 40 Euro for two.