Venice, Italy Travel Guide

We absolutely adored Venice. As soon as we got off the bus, we were amazed at how dream-like it was. It is a city that is frozen in time and reminded us of Disneyland in the way that it is a created world. Venice is so rich in history and culture. We were so happy that we were able to see it when we did because we would not be surprised to see Venice completely disappear during our lifetime. It is so old and is decaying at a rapid rate. So if you have always wanted to see Venice, do it now!

We spent a total of two full days in Venice, plus one evening and one morning. For a good Venice experience, we would suggest planning two full days and either an evening or a morning to get the full experience.

First Evening:

When we first got to Venice, we just spent the evening wandering and getting lost. And it truly is the best experience we had in Venice. I highly suggest everyone takes a few hours and literally get lost in Venice. We really enjoyed peeking in all of the mask and glass shops, finding a pizza place for dinner and treating ourselves to a double scoop of real Italian gelato. It was the perfect way to get ourselves into the Venetian mood. As we wandered, we took pictures at literally every corner. This city is so picturesque, it is hard to not take hundreds of photos. The evenings seem to have less people which makes it much better for taking pictures and enjoying the atmosphere. 

Day 1:

We suggest starting your morning early. Find a bakery for some pastries for breakfast and get yourselves to St. Mark's Square.  If you can get there before 9:30 or 10:00, you will basically have the square to yourselves. Listen to the Rick Steves Audio Europe track for St. Mark's Square. 

After wandering around the Square listening to Rick, hop in line at St. Mark's Basilica. They open around 10:00, but the line starts forming by 9:30 so make sure you get a spot. The line moves quickly and it won't take too long to get into the Basilica. Make sure you have covered shoulders and knees, but if you don't they have brown plastic you can cover yourself with. Rick Steves also has another Audio Europe track for St. Mark's Basilica. Make sure to check it out while you're there. 

From St. Mark's Basilica, go to the Campanile. If you are lucky enough to be at the top of the tower during the half hour, you are in for a loud treat! You will get to see the bells as they ring the time. You will have amazing views of the city, so definitely take the time to make a stop here. 

From here, if you're ready for lunch, head away from St. Mark's. Everything close to the Square is quite a bit more expensive. We suggest heading towards the Frari Church.  If you can't wait to eat, continue past the Church for a really yummy pizza and calzone place we found behind the church. Not too far away from there is also a really good gelato stand. After you've had your fill, head back to the Frari Church for a calm tour of a beautiful building. Again, listen to Rick to learn more about the history of this beautiful church. 

After you've had a chance to cool down, you can wander around and head toward the Rialto Bridge. There are lots of cute shops and squares along the way. Take your time and soak up the Venetian-ness. Once you get to the Rialto Bridge, hop on a Vaporetto and go back to San Marco Square (St. Mark's Square).

Once there, go to the Correr Museum. It is on the opposite side of St. Mark's Basilica. Once there, buy tickets for the Doge's Palace. Your tickets will be good for a few days so you can choose if you want to go to Doge's Palace or if you want to check out the museums to end your day of sight seeing.

After the museums or the palace, find a place to eat some dinner, grab some gelato and if you have enough energy, spend some more time wandering around this seaside town in the evening. 

Day 2:

This day, set aside for spending on the islands of Murano and Burano. Know that the Vaporetto ride takes a long time to get there. So plan on at least 45 minutes of travel time to get to Murano and add another 30-45 minutes of travel time to get to Burano. Also know that most places won't open until 9:00 or 10:00 in the morning so you can't get too early of a start. When you are are on Murano, enjoy looking at all of the glass shops and purchase some souvenirs. Make sure that you have a safe way to get them home though! After you've had your fill of glass, hop on another Vaporetto and head to Burano. Once there, grab a pizza and some gelato for lunch before exploring this cute little island. There are lots of lace kiosks and stands to buy some famous lace if that's your thing. Also make sure to spend a lot of time wandering the streets and taking in the vibrant colors of the homes along the canals. 

From Burano, take another Vaporetto and head to San Marco's. This is another 45 minute (at least) boat ride. Once you get to the Square finish off the day with either the Doge's Palace and prisons or the Correr Museum. 

After find some of your favorite Italian food and get one last gelato as you enjoy your last evening in Venice. 

St. Mark's Square: Piazza San Marco

St. Mark's Square or the Piazza San Marco in Italian is the main center of action in Venice. It is where a lot of historic places come together like the Doge's Palace, St. Mark's Basilica, the Campanile and the Museo Correa. It is also the home to some fancy restaurants. It is the place to see and be seen.

How to Get There:

Getting to St. Mark's Square is pretty easy. Follow the yellow signs or take the vaporetto and get off at either of the San Marco stops. Once you're there, be sure to check out the Rick Steves Audio Europe App and listen to the St. Mark's Square track. We suggest getting there early in the morning before things open (definitely before 10:00 am) to walk around and listen to the audio guide. You will learn a lot of history and learn the layout of the square. 

What You Will See:

Once you are there, it really is just a big square with buildings around it. At one end you will see St. Mark's Basilica and next to that you will see the Doge's Palace.  In front of those two buildings you will see the Campanile. On either side of the Piazza you will see two large restaurants with outdoor and indoor seating. Opposite of the Basilica is Museo Correa. 

Sum Up:

St. Mark's Square is the center of Venice. Lots of shops and stores are close to the square as well as most of the main historical sites of Venice. 

 

St. Mark's Campanile

When you are looking at St. Mark's Square in Venice, the most apparent building in the square is St. Mark's Campanile (or bell tower). It is tall, slightly crooked, and a beautiful red color and stands out amongst the white and creme colored buildings.

How to Get There:

If you are traveling by vaporetto, you can get off at any of the San Marco stops. If you are planning on walking, follow the yellow signs to San Marco. (Check out our post here for more details about getting around Venice.) Once you get to the square you will easily be able to see which building is the bell tower. 

The entrance to the Campanile is on the side of the tower that faces St. Mark's Basilica. You will enter the doors and buy your tickets. From there, you will stand in a very small line area and wait for the elevator to get to the top of the bell tower. The elevator only takes 12-15 people up at once, but the line does move pretty fast.  

What You Will See:

If you are lucky enough to time your visit on the half hour, you will be able to hear the bells ring at the top of the tower. We just happened to go up during the time the bells were ringing. It was such an amazing experience that we highly suggest that you go up while the bells are ringing. It is extremely loud though so if you have little kids, you might want to bring ear plugs for them. 

At the top of the tower you have amazing 360 degree views of the city. It was amazing to me to see how big Venice seemed from up there. It was also neat, and kind of sad, to see how many of the other bell towers and other buildings around Venice are severely leaning to one side due to the unstable foundation of the city. 

As you look out around the city, there are plaques that go with the Venice Panorama app that give you information about what you are looking at. It is a paid app and we did not know about it or download it before we were at the top of the tower, so we can't vouch for how well it works. It is a cool idea and we did wish we knew more of what we were looking at. If any of you have used it we would love to hear your experience with it!

Sum Up:

Visiting St. Mark's Campanile was one of my favorite things we did in Venice. It offers amazing, unique views of Venice. If you make it to the top on or around the half hour, you will be in for a treat of listening to the bells ring. Even though it is extremely noisy, it is such a unique experience and we highly recommend it. Visiting the bell tower is high on our list of Venice must do's and is totally worth the 8 euro price tag.

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Rick Steves Audio Europe App Review

I am a big fan of using audio for learning experiences. As an instructional designer I understand the efficacy of this approach and as a tourist I appreciate its convenience. So when our friends, who were with us for part of the recent Europe trip, introduced us to the Rick Steves Audio Europe App I jumped at it. Being able to stay visually engaged with a place while getting audio information about it allows a greater appreciation than trying to look back and forth between info plaques and the thing you are suppose to be seeing. In addition to the inconvenience of trying to look between an object or scene and a plaque, in many places there will not be plaques in English or even plaques at all. This is particularly true of places like gardens and churches. For these reasons I found the Rick Steves app to be extremely valuable while traveling in Europe.

Rick Steves is an American who is an expert on European travel. He has written numerous guide books and also runs his own tours. His audio guides are very informative and tell you just where to look and what you are looking at. Of course we all know, much to my chagrin, that you can't learn everything about a place when you visit it, and Rick does a good job of condensing down the information and sharing a good amount with you.

The key to using the app is to be patient with it. It's far from perfect as an app and of course there is no way for Rick to know what might be going on when you are at any particular location in Europe. Despite its failings the information is very useful and I found myself wishing that I had Rick Steves' audio guides for many places where there wasn't one available.

If you decide to use this app while you are traveling in Europe I highly recommend that you download everything you need before you leave your own internet, as I do with most apps you use for traveling. Download anything that you think might need, it is far better to have some audio that you don't listen to than not have one downloaded that you end up wanting. I would recommend downloading everything available for each city you are visiting and double check that it actually downloaded.

One of the problems is that you can't always tell if a certain location have an audio guide available because some places are hidden inside of larger guides. For example we did not think that there was one for Notre Dame until we downloaded the Paris walking tour guide and found that it had its own tracks. Since you can't see the individual tracks until you download the guide its hard to know which ones you are going to need. It's not the best user experience, but the content is good.

Speaking of the user experience I'll just point out a few things that are likely to be frustrating so you are prepared for them. The first is non-standard audio controls, this just means that it doesn't use the iPhone's regular audio controls so that when you turn on your phone's lock screen you can't use options like the 15 second skip back and forward controls. The second is the maps, in every guide Rick will tell you there is a map available, these are just simple PDFs which might be helpful in a pinch, but you are probably better off getting a map from the info desk of whatever location you are visiting.

One issue that we encountered was trying to all stay in the same place on each guide. In hindsight my suggestion is to not worry much about it, if you start at the same time then you are mostly going to be near each other. I also highly suggest using headphones with a play/pause button so that you can easily stop the audio when needed and then start it again without having to dig out your phone. As way of a word of caution to Android users, it appears the Android version of the app does not allow for playback at double speed.

Aside from the audio guides to specific places that are in the app Rick also has a number of interviews he has done with experts on a particular location. These can be good to listen to when you are traveling to or from a place to give you more context and understanding, but if you have a limited amount of storage on your device definitely prioritize the actual audio guides.

In summary this app really is a must have for visiting Europe. Even though many of the places you go might offer audio guides of their own they are normally harder to understand and require an extra purchase whereas this app is free, so you should use it wherever you can.

Visiting Saint Mark's Basilica

While getting lost and wandering around the beautiful streets of Venice was one of my favorite things we did, Saint Mark's Basilica is definitely a main attraction to this seaside city. Located in Saint Mark's Square, and also known as Basilica San Marco in Italian, the Basilica is a beautiful piece of architecture on the outside and full of beautiful details on the inside.

How to Get There:

Getting to Saint Mark's Basilica is pretty easy because it is one of the main features of Venice. There is lots of signage pointing you towards the basilica if you choose to walk. Or you can get off at either of the San Marco stops on a vaporetto. Saint Mark's Basilica is located at the East end of Saint Mark's Square, right next to Doge's Palace. 

To get inside the building, you will need to stand in line. The line starts at the front of the building and heads towards the Doge's Palace. They do not allow large bags to be brought into the basilica but they do have a bag check. To get there, head north of the basilica, past the lion statues into a little alley way between the yellow and white buildings. If you get lost or confused, just ask someone near-by and they can tell you where to go. There is also a map of where to check your bag near the entrance to the basilica. The bag check is free, but lasts only an hour. 

Also to get inside the building, you will need to be covered. They do not allow bare shoulders or knees inside of the basilica. If you do come with bare shoulders or knees, they do have these plastic table cloths that you can wrap around yourself to cover the bare skin. 

What You Will See:

To get inside of the church is free, and within the church there are areas that you can pay to go see. We only did the free things and it was still a beautiful experience. We suggest listening to Rick Steves Audio Europe app and following along on the St. Mark's Basilica track (the track starts with the outside of the church). It took us about 30 minutes to see the free parts of the church and this included listening to Rick. 

Inside the basilica you will see lots and lots of mosaics. They are all over the place! The floors, the ceilings, the walls, everywhere. The mosaics were my favorite part of the church. They were so detailed and so beautiful! Because Saint Mark's Basilica is an active, working church, they do not allow pictures inside. 

Saint Mark's Basilica is a beautiful place and is a nice way to take a little bit of a break. It is dark and cool and a nice place to relax for a bit before heading back into Venice. The lines to get into Saint Mark's can often be quite long and get especially long during the afternoon. The best time to go is first thing in the morning when they open. But be aware that the line starts forming at least 30 minutes prior to them opening the doors. 

Sum Up:

Saint Mark's Basilica is one of the main attractions to see in Venice. Located in Saint Mark's Square, it is a free site to see with paid options inside. Without doing the paid options it takes about a half an hour. There is a Rick Steves Audio Europe track to listen to while you are visiting the basilica that gives you lots of information and neat history about this beautiful church.

Getting Around Venice

Venice is a crowded, ancient city built in a lagoon on top of hundreds of individual islands. It is this very nature that makes Venice one of the most charming places on the planet and probably why you want to go there in the first place. However this unique history also causes it to be a difficult city to navigate. This guide will help you to avoid frustration as you visit this incredibly amazing location.

Embrace Getting Lost:

While there are a few "must sees" in Venice, like the Grand Canal and St. Mark's Basilica, the real attraction is Venice itself. This place is amazing, I can't even tell you how much I loved just looking at it. So if you are lost, don't sweat it, you are seeing what you came here to see and sooner or later your going to stumble upon a major area with lots of people and be able to find your way again.

Getting lost is easy in Venice because it has two types of streets: canals which will only help you if you are a boat, and alleys that cross the canals via hundreds of bridges. Because you are not a boat you will mostly get around Venice on foot, and you will love it. A few tips though are to carry as little as possible, because you will be going up and down a lot of bridges, and be aware that the main alleys can get extremely crowded during busy times, so watch for pick pockets. 

Watch for Yellow Signs:

As you walk around Venice you will go down many different alleys and through an enormous number of squares. You will likely have some famous place you are trying to get to, such as San Marco Square. The key to getting there is to watch when you come to crossroads or through a square for the yellow signs posted on the walls above alleys. These will have arrows directing you down certain alleys to certain places. They key is to keep looking for these signs. For example if you follow a sign pointing to the Rialto Bridge down one alley, the next time you come to a square you need to look for the next sign pointing to the Rialto Bridge. Following this pattern will eventually get you to the place you are looking for.

Use Vaporetti (Water buses):

Like most major cities in the world, Venice has a public transit system. Unlike most major cities this system is made out of vaporetti, or water buses. These are public ferries that cruise around Venice, mainly on the Grand Canal, and to the outlying islands like Lido, Murrano, and Burrano.

There are a couple things to consider before taking a vaporetto. The first is whether you can figure out how to get there on a vaporetto. The lines are confusing, especially when you first arrive and don't know much about the city. Maps can be found posted at each vaporetto stop or can be purchased from the info station near the railway station for €3. Its a rather steep price for a rather bad map, Venice is one big tourist trap, so be prepared for it.

The second thing to know is that if you take the number 1 or the number 2 bus which are the main lines down the Grand Canal you likely could have walked to your destination faster. The benefit of taking the water bus is that you don't have to walk. The drawback is that travel on the Grand Canal is not fast, especially when making a lot of stops. On the plus side if you can get a spot standing on the deck you can see Venice in a completely different way than you do by walking.

The third thing to know is to make sure you get the right stop. There will normally be several stops right next to each other each one only receiving one or two of the routes, normally only in one direction. These stops will all have the same name (i.e. Ferrovia) but will be labeled with different letters (i.e. Ferrovia A, Ferrovia B, etc).

The fourth thing to know is that it is expensive to take the water buses. A ticket will cost you €7,50 and unless you are making a transfer right away you can assume that is a one way price. In the next section I will talk about getting a pass if you are going to ride the buses quite a bit.

One important note is that if you want to visit any of the outlying islands you will need to take a vaporetto or a private water taxi. Since we highly recommend you visit the islands of Murrano and Burrano this will entail at least one vaporetto trip.

Unica/Rolling Venice Pass:

The best way to use the vaporetti system, if you plan to ride it more than a couple times, is to get a pass. Unfortunately this is fairly confusing process online, so I suggest you just wait until you get there which is what we did. If you arrive by train into the railway station, or by bus into Pizza Roma you will be close to the information booth just outside the train station. This is where you can buy passes. You might also be able to buy passes at the airport, but I am not sure about that.

When you buy a pass you can choose how many days you want it for. If you are over 29 years old be sure to plan your trip so that you only get the number of days you need. If possible try to group all your water bus trips on to a single day to save money. If you are under 29 years old you qualify to get a special youth pass with the purchase of an add on called Rolling Venice. This special youth pass will be good for 3 days and will cost you only €22. The Rolling Venice costs €6 itself but this is by far the best deal. I know that is confusing, for some reason they can't seem to make it easy.

Note that online it will say that this "youth pass" won't get you to the airport, that is only true for airport direct shuttles. The pass will work fine on the public bus (#5) that runs to the airport.

The passes are made out of somewhat heavy paper which have a proximity chip inside them for tapping on to the water busses. Be sure the keep them in a safe place, preferably a theft resistant bag, and keep them dry.

Gondolas:

Gondolas are very cool to watch on the canals, they also happen to be very expensive. If you ride in a gondola it is not to get from one place to another but rather to experience the gondola ride. We did not do one because of how expensive it is, but if you are wondering it is €80 during the day and €100 during the evening. You can take up to 6 people with you, so if your group is large enough you can lower the price per person quite a bit.

Getting To and From the Airport:

The Marco Polo airport is one of the most likely places you will arrive in Venice. Except that it is not actually in Venice since it is on the mainland. That means that when you arrive you will need to get from the airport to Venice. This was one of the most stressful parts of the trip because we didn't know how we would get there even though I had looked it up online and was planning to take the #5 bus. It turns out that there are actually quite a few ways to get to the city from the airport, so it isn't something to stress over. 

The #5 bus worked just fine, although we missed one right when we arrived because of a delay our plane had leaving Paris. The #5 is a public bus and what Google Maps will likely recommend to anyone looking for a public transportation option. Since it is a public bus it makes quite a few stops on the way to the island and also can get quite crowded. There are several other buses that are just for getting to and from the airport so you could also buy tickets for one of them. You can of course also take a private taxi if you want, either land or water.

If you take a land vehicle to the island you will cross a huge bridge and get off at Piazza Roma. From there you can cross the large glass bridge to the area by around the train station and the vaporreti stops. 

A 3 Day Travel Guide to Paris

We spent a solid 3 days in Paris and felt like we saw everything we wanted to see. I'm sure if we stayed longer, we would have found some amazing hidden gems. But in 3 days we were able to hit lots of major landmarks.

After our experience, we found that there were a few things we could have done better. So while this travel guide is not exactly how we saw everything, we did see everything in this guide and want to share from our experiences.

Before we start, here are a few suggestions of things to do before you start your trip.

• Hotel: Make sure to get a hotel near a metro stop. We suggest going through Hotels.com. When you are looking at hotels, make sure to check the comments from previous guests. They are usually good about saying if the hotel is close to a metro stop or not. We stayed at this hotel and it was SO CLOSE to a metro stop, but it was also a teeny, tiny room which we were not expecting. 
• Paris Museum Pass: You can't go to Paris and not get a museum pass. It saves you so much money! And it lets you into so many different sites around Paris. Some of the sites even let you skip the waiting line if you have the Museum Pass. We bought our passes just at the airport near baggage claim, but you can also buy them online and have them mailed to you before you go or you can pick them up in Paris when you get there. 
• Metro Passes: Check out our post here to get all of the details on what and how to get the passes. 
• Apps: Make sure to download these four apps before you get to Paris. 

Day 1:

Because you're in Paris, probably the first thing you will want to see is the Eiffel Tower. This is one of the attractions in Paris that opens at 9:00 am during peak season (mid-June through early September). You can check out our post here for specific details. Plan on spending 2-3 hours at this site, especially if you are planning on walking up the stairs! 

**For another cool Eiffel Tower experience, try going 30-60 minutes before sunset so you can watch the sun setting and see the tower lit up. While we did not do this on our trip, this was something I saw recommended after we were already home**

While at the Eiffel Tower, you may want to stop and eat at one of their restaurants or cafes. We found that the cafe had delicious food and wasn't too terribly priced. 

After viewing the Eiffel Tower, make sure to take some time back on the ground to take some pictures of the whole tower. When we were there, the grassy area in front of the tower was closed. So we just went across the Seine and were still able to get amazing pictures. 

From the Eiffel Tower, we suggest heading to the Arc de Triomphe. Check out our post here to find out details about the tricky way to go to get to the Arc. While at the Arc, we definitely suggest climbing up to the top if you can! After the Eiffel Tower, it might be a lot for people in poor health or for young children. Our legs definitely hurt after our first day but the stairs were worth it!

For an easy end to the day, we suggest going to Napoleon's Tomb and the Army Museum. While we didn't actually go inside the museum (because it was closed when we got there), from what we hear it is a good place to visit. Check out our post here about Napoleon's Tomb.

At this point we suggest finding a place to grab dinner. Our favorite places were little crepe stands and shops.

After dinner we headed back to our hotel to unwind and relax for the evening because we were so tired from touring all day! If you're up for it, head back to the Eiffel Tower to see it at night all lit up. The Arc de Triomphe at night is also an amazing sight.

Day 2:

The second day we suggest going to the old city center. By getting off at the Cite metro stop, you are within walking distance of 3 amazing sights in Paris. 

First, head over to Sainte Chapelle. This was my favorite place we saw in all of Paris. Plan on spending at least an hour there. Ben wanted to stay longer and I now wish that we would have. 

After Sainte Chapelle, go over to Notre Dame and wait in line to climb the towers. Check out Ben's post here about the towers. This was my second favorite thing we did in Paris. 

After the towers, grab some lunch at a crepe stand across the street from Notre Dame and start to listen to the Rick Steves Audio Europe App. Go to the track called Historic Paris. As you eat your crepes and start listening to Rick, you can stand in line to enter the cathedral. Even if the line looks long, it moves pretty fast. Check out Ben's post here about seeing the inside of Notre Dame. 

When you come out of the church, if you have time and want to cool down a bit, head on over to the Archeological Crypts at the opposite end of the plaza. 

After the Crypts, continue listening to Rick and take the Historic Paris walking tour. Sadly we did not have time to do this tour and I really wish that we had.  

If you aren't into seeing the Crypts, or you don't want to do the walking tour, you could go to the Louvre and Orsay Museums. But, we wouldn't suggest them, except maybe going to the outside of the Louvre Museum in order to see the glass pyramids. Check out my post about the Louvre here and why you probably don't need to see it.

Day 3:

This last day, we suggest spending in Versailles. It is such a beautiful place and you can literally spend all day there. Make sure to take into account transit time getter there. Since it is outside of the main city center area of Paris, it does take a little bit of extra time getting there but it is so worth it. See my detailed post about Versailles here. 

And there you have it! 3 days in Paris! We loved our time in Paris and are so grateful that we got to experience one of the most popular cities in the world. It is so popular for a good reason. There are so many things to see and do, but don't over schedule yourself. Take your time and really enjoy the place you are in. Look for the beauty and the details and take lots of pictures! But also spend time in the moment. I think we had a good balance of enjoying our time in the moment and enjoying our time through camera lenses. Plan and prepare, but don't freak out when plans don't go your way. 

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