Philadelphia Travel Guide (and day trip ideas!)

We spent a whirlwind 3 days in Pennsylvania. During those few days we drove all over the state and experienced a lot of fun and interesting things. In this post, I've put together the perfect one day travel guide for Philadelphia as well as a few other day trip ideas.

Philadelphia:

Make sure to start out your day as early as possible. We chose to park at the National Constitution Center for the day. Your first stop should be to the Visitor's Center just across the street from the Constitution Center to pick up your tickets to see Independence Hall. 

After your tickets are picked up, we suggest going right to the Liberty Bell first thing. The line gets longer as the day goes on. When we went shortly after it opened, we didn't have to wait in line at all. Also when we got to see the Liberty Bell, we were able to easily get around it and have good views. 

If you have early tickets for Independence Hall, head over there right after you finish the Liberty Bell. You need to be at the security line about 20 minutes before the time on your tickets. Check out more info on Independence Hall here. After your tour, there are a few other free tours in the same building that do not require tickets that we highly recommend you visit. 

After Independence Hall, make sure to head back over to the National Constitution Center. There are lots of fun and interactive exhibits. 

The rest of the afternoon, you can spend at Franklin Court. There is a really fun museum, a print shop and a few other exhibits about Benjamin Franklin. We found this to be a true hidden gem in Philadelphia. 

If you have time at the end of your day, make sure to head over to see the LOVE Statue. Usually it is housed at LOVE Park (JFK Plaza), but while they are renovating the park it has been temporarily re-located to Dilworth Park. Reading Market is in the same area and is also a great stop!

Other Day Trips:

If you're in Philadelphia for more than a day, here are a few other things that we did while we were there that we highly recommend you take the time to visit. 

Valley Forge

Valley Forge is just outside of Philadelphia and it is such a great stop! It doesn't take more than a few hours to go through and is so beautiful and full of history. Check out our experience at Valley Forge here. 

Gettysburg

Gettysburg is another beautiful and historic place that you could spend all day at. There is a beautiful museum and fun experiences as well as the battleground itself. If you finish visiting the grounds and museum, check out the cute little tourist town of Gettysburg. Check out our full review here. 

Susquehanna

Located in northern Pennsylvania, Susquehanna is a small town that you have to want to go to to get there. If you are LDS (or even if you're not) going to Susquehanna and seeing the Priesthood Restoration Site is an amazing experience. This was one of my favorite things we did during our trip to Pennsylvania. The surrounding area is absolutely beautiful and the site is absolutely amazing. You can see what we thought by reading our post here.

Franklin Court and the Benjamin Franklin Museum

A couple blocks from Independence Hall is a nondescript brick building, a tunnel like pass leads in to a courtyard where the home of Benjamin Franklin once stood. This area is known as Franklin Court. Franklin Court is managed by the National Parks Service and contains several different areas, all dedicated to the life of Benjamin Franklin. The largest area and the one you will spend the most time in is the Benjamin Franklin Museum.

How to Get There:

If you have parked at the National Constitution Center and are seeing the city center sites around Independence Hall then Franklin Court is just a short walk away. If you are standing facing Independence Hall from across the street you just turn left and walk a few blocks. You will have to cross to the Independence Hall side of the street at one of the lights. There will be sign posts pointing the directions to the various historical sites and you just have to follow the ones showing the way to Franklin Court. Don't get confused by signs pointing toward Franklin Square, this is a different place entirely. 

Be aware that the Franklin Court sites close at 5:00 PM during the off season (September to May). If you are going during the summer check their website for the current  hours. Just make sure to give yourself enough time for your visit. It is best if you can start your historic Philadelphia activities early in the day so you can avoid long lines and have plenty of time for everything.

What You Will See:

The areas of Franklin Court are: the Benjamin Franklin Museum, the Print Shop, the Post Office, the Ghost House, and the Fragments of Franklin Court. Each of these has something to teach you about the life of Benjamin Franklin, but the museum is the most involved and will take the most time.

Benjamin Franklin Museum

Readers who have been following the blog for a while know that I like museums a lot, but because of my own work in the museum field I can sometimes be critical of the educational impact of their exhibits. The Benjamin Franklin Museum however, was one of the best designed museums I have ever visited. 

In the museum you learn about the life of Benjamin Franklin through the lenses of five qualities he prized. Each section of the museum focuses on a different quality with displays, artifacts, and media explaining what Franklin thought and did about each of them. There is a good balance in the museum between different types of information. The animation style they used in their video displays wasn't my favorite, but that's not too big of a complaint.

The museum costs $5.00 for adults and $2.00 for children. You pay at the front desk when you enter the museum building but all of the exhibits are downstairs underneath the buildings and the court yard. You should allow about an hour for the museum, because it is a focused museum it doesn't take too long but there is quite a bit that you can do there. 

Print Shop

The print shop is probably the second coolest thing to see at Franklin Court, so if you are short on time after seeing the museum be sure to go here next. The print shop is on the left side of the tunnel if you are looking from inside the square, there are signs but they aren't always easy to see. The door immediately to the left of the tunnel goes to the Fragments of Franklin Court exhibit, but if you go around the side you will find two doors that go to the print shop, you enter through the one on the right and you will exit through the one on the left. 

The print shop is not where Benjamin Franklin's actual shop was, but it is set up to look like a shop from his time period. National Park rangers run the fully functioning printing shop and will explain all the different parts to you. I think during busy times they might be a little more formal about it, but when we were there there weren't many people so they just answered question that we asked. It is fun to see real printing demonstration. 

Seeing the print shop is free and should take you between 10 and 30 minutes.

Post Office

The post office is on the right side of the tunnel, but it was closed the day we were there so we don't know much about it. Just like the print shop you enter it from the door inside the courtyard rather than the one facing the street.

The purpose of the post office is to commemorate Benjamin Franklin's role as the organizer of the postal system and first post master general. I am told that it still functions as a post office so you can actually send mail from it.

Ghost House

I don't know what goes through your mind when you read the words "ghost house" but it's probably not what it actually is. In this case ghost house has nothing to do with Halloween and is actually referring to the outline of Franklin's old house that use to stand in the court. You can see how large it was because there is wrought iron frame in the exact dimensions of the house. 

Covered holes inside the house frame let you look down on pieces of the actual foundation of Benjamin Franklin's house, and engraved paving stones throughout the court tell you where different parts of the home and grounds were located. 

It is pretty cool to see especially if you have just been to the museum and learned all about Franklin's life. It will only take you a few minutes to walk around see it.

Fragments of Franklin Court

This is a special exhibit run by the National Parks rangers and it is inside the door immediately to the left of the court's entrance tunnel. It turns out that among the many thing Benjamin Franklin created in his life time, one of them was a fire proof house. This building happens to be that house and it has been stripped down to bare walls to show the things that Franklin did to make it fire proof. 

I get the sense that this must be the loneliest ranger job in the city because there is just a single ranger at the exhibit and it seemed like very few people stop to see it. It's kind of cool to see, and really doesn't take very long. It does however involve climbing stairs which means that it is not a fully accessible site. There is no cost for going in. 

Sum Up:

Franklin Court as a whole gives you a great glimpse into the life of one of America's greatest founders. It isn't on the absolute must see list for Philadelphia, if your strapped for time or lines are long then you'll want to focus on Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell. But I think if you can make the time to see it you definitely should. It is a great place especially to take kids who may not have liked standing in line al that time for the Liberty Bell this is a place where they can get some hands on time and learn something in the process.

As a side note Benjamin Franklin's grave is located not far from here in the cemetery at Christ's Church. We were unable to visit it on this trip, but I have been there before. Some people like to visit graves, some people don't, do whatever suits you.

The LDS Priesthood Restoration Site

A place becomes sacred because of what happens there. Gettysburg which I wrote about last week, became a hallowed place because of the sacrifice men made while there. It became sacred because of what was lost, in contrast the area formerly known as Harmony, Pennsylvania is sacred to the Latter-day Saints (Mormons), not because of what was lost but because of what was restored there. Priesthood, the power of God given to man, had been absent from the earth for centuries and in this nondescript corner of the world it was brought back. For more on the history please see this link.

The LDS church has just recently done a full scale rebuilding of the site complete with visitor center/chapel, rebuilding of the Smith and Hale homes on their original foundations, and easier access to the river. Having served as a missionary in Northern Pennsylvania when there was still nothing but a single monument and earthen mounds over the foundations this recent visit was very emotional for me.

How to Get There:

The chances of you ever just happening to be passing by the Priesthood Restoration site are extremely slim. The town of Susquehanna, Pennsylvania where it is now located is very small and out of the way. You will get to the site on Highway 171, it is on this Highway so that is the only road you can take to get there. Depending on which direction you are coming from you might come in on I-81 which is the closest interstate to the site. A lot of people will likely come from New York because they will be visiting other LDS church history sites in the Palmyra area. They will come South on I-81 and the head East when it junctures with Highway 171.

In the old days there use to be a small parking lot next to granite shaft that memorialized the event of Priesthood restoration and that was what you would see first. With the reconstruction of the site there is now a beautiful chapel on the property that has a visitor center inside it and much larger parking lot. You will the see the church, you can't really miss it, but you might miss the driveway which runs along the steeple side of the church. 

What You Will See:

Visitor Center/Chapel

When you park in the parking lot the visitor center will be the doors on your far right, next to the statue depictions of the Priesthood restoration. Enter through these doors and you will immediately be greeted by missionaries who will help you know where to go and what to do. Immediately inside the doors is a scale model/map of the whole site. You can press buttons along the outside edge to have a light highlight different areas.

When we arrived at the visitor center they were just ready the begin a tour so we went right in to the movie that shows a dramatized version of the events that happened here. The movie is the beginning of the tour. The film is about 20 minutes long and is actually quite good it is a new film that was made especially for this new visitor center and both Meagan and I really enjoyed it. 

If you arrive in between film showings you will have time to look around the visitor center before your official tour begins. It is a very impressive visitor center, one of the best I think I've been to. With my degree in instructional design I tend to look at visitor center/museum spaces with an eye towards learning, and in particular interactive learning. This visitor center focuses just on the events that took place here in LDS history, so it is not super large but you could spend a significant amount of time if you do and read/watch everything. 

Site Tour

Once you finish the movie a set of missionaries (either two sisters or a senior couple) will take you on a tour of the site. You will see the statues outside and then go past the sugar maple bush where historians guess the restoration of the Aaronic priesthood took place. Then you will pass under the highway in a tunnel that will take you to the Smith and Hale homes. 

The tour will take you first through the Hale home and then through the Smith home. I won't go into all the history here because I want you to go there and learn it. But I will say that these homes are beautiful restorations. They don't know too much about how they would have exactly looked inside, but they have mostly used real period pieces to furnish them and taken their best guess based on records at what they would have looked like. 

Cemetery

When you finish the official tour you will be free to walk around the site at your leisure and this is when you can visit the cemetery which is just a short walk away. In this cemetery you will find the graves of Emma's parents, the Hales, and the first child of Joseph and Emma who died shortly after birth.

You can see the cemetery from the Smith house where your tour ends, but finding the graves can be slightly tricky if you don't know where they are or what you are looking for. If you get lost just ask the missionaries, they can help you. If you are walking from the Smith home just keep left and head almost all the way to the far end of the cemetery. Look for two new looking headstones, the reason you are looking for new ones is because the old headstones have been encapsulated in more modern ones in order to preserve them and you can only see the new side when walking from the home sites. 

The two Hale headstones are easier to find because they are together, but one you do the grave of the Smith baby is just a few plots away.

Old Monument

As I mentioned before this granite shaft with a relief carving of John the Baptist restoring the Aaronic Priesthood to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdrey used to be the memorial for the entire site. It is still impressive and has an important history of its own. It was purchased in 1960 using funds donated by boys who held the Aaronic priesthood from around the world.

Sugar Maple Bush

 You can stop at the sugar maple bush on your way back to the visitor center. The words bush is a bit of a misnomer in this day and age because people probably think of a single shrub. It is more of a grove, and if you have visited the Sacred Grove in Palmyra, New York this will probably remind you of there. There are paths and benches through the area making it a good place to walk, sit, and ponder. 

Susquehanna River

You will have to drive to the river site which is either at or near where the baptisms of Joseph and Oliver took place. The river is actually very close to the old monument, but a railroad line runs between them making it so you can't walk there. For this reason it is often the last place people visit at this site. When you leave the visitor center turn left onto the highway. A short way down the road you will see a large blue sign showing you where to turn to get the river. You follow this road over the railroad tracks and then to the right until you reach the end of the road and the head of the trail that leads down to the river.

The trail will take you down to the river to the area where it is likely that Joseph and Oliver's baptisms took place. This a peaceful and beautiful spot to visit and to stand for a moment and ponder.

Sum Up:

This is a great site to visit. There is no cost for visiting and it is excellently set up to help you understand the history of the site and the doctrinal significance of it to the Latter-day Saints. All the trails are fully accessible so it is fine to bring strollers and wheel chairs on them, although I don't think they can get them inside the houses. You should expect to spend anywhere from 1-3 hours here. 

Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell

No trip to Philadelphia would be complete without visiting Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell. These are two of the most historic sites in all of Philadelphia and they so key to the beginning of our American history.

How to Get There:

Once you get to downtown Philly, there are a few places you can park. The easiest places are at The Constitution Center (that is where we parked) or there is a small lot underneath the building that houses the Liberty Bell. 

For Independence Hall, you will need to go first to the Visitor's Center which is right next to the Liberty Bell. Go to the National Parks desk and you can get tickets to Independence Hall. Tours start at 10:00 and go every 30 minutes or so. 

For the Liberty Bell, be sure to go early to get in line at the building. As the day goes on the line can get very long. 

What You Will See:

At Independence Hall, you will first meet in a small waiting room where a park ranger will give you some information about the hall and introduce you to the site. You will then go to the main hall and see first the court room and then you will be taken to the room where the Constitution was signed. In each room, the park ranger will give you some more historical information and context for each room. After you tour you will exit the hall and then you can go to two of the other parts of Independence Hall. Those other parts do not require tickets. 

The Liberty Bell is housed inside of a small building. After going through security you will go through some nice displays that give the history of the Liberty Bell and how it is still a national symbol today. At the end of the display, you will see the actual Liberty Bell. Again, if you go early it won't be too crowded. But just be warned that the lighting for the bell is not that great so pictures do not turn out that great. 

Sum Up:

Make sure you stop at the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall on your next trip to Philadelphia. For each place make sure that you come early and for Independence Hall make sure you get your tickets early. 

Visiting Valley Forge

While we were on our quick trip to Pennsylvania, we made our first stop at Valley Forge. It was a beautiful site with an amazing feeling. We had a great morning there and definitely suggest that everyone take a chance to go see it.

How to Get There:

Valley Forge is pretty easy to get to. Because it is a historically significant site, there are signs that direct you pretty easily to the site. Once you're there, we suggest starting the auto tour, especially if you get there before the visitor's center opens. You can find a map for the tour here. 

What You Will See:

We started our day with the auto tour. We saw a lot of sites along the way, while we didn't stop at every single one, we did stop at a few that we felt had the most significance.

Redoubt

This was the first stop we made (stop #2 on the route). Redoubt had a small parking lot to leave your car and then you cross the street and you can see inside the cabins that were made by the men who camped at Valley Forge. If you listen to the audio guide by dialing the phone number and entering in the correct code, it gives you some nice information about the history of this site. 

National Memorial Arch

The National Memorial Arch was stop #3 on the auto tour. We parked and were able to walk up and around the arch. We were able to learn about some of the symbolism and the history of the arch by listening to the audio guide. 

 

Varnum's Quarters

Stop #8 on the tour and again, we parked and got out of our car, then we headed down a short path to see Varnum's home. During the summer months there are tours available of the home. Sadly when we were there a few days after they had closed the tours for the season. 

Washington Memorial Chapel

This was the last stop on the tour and it was our favorite place. It has beautiful grounds and has the cutest little chapel. It reminded us a lot of the chapels we went to in Europe.

Visitor's Center

At the visitor's center, there are a few exhibits you can look at to give you more history and context of Valley Forge. There is also a movie that you can see. The film starts every hour and the theater is outside of the actual visitor's center. You just go upstairs and head to the left and you will see a building that has signs for the theater. 

Sum Up:

Valley Forge is a great historic site that only takes a few hours to tour. You can take longer though if you want to. There are lots of trails to walk and bike on that go all over the park. It is such a beautiful area and definitely worth the time to stop.



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Visiting Gettysburg National Military Park

Since we just returned from a whirlwind trip to Pennsylvania we are going to take a quick break from Europe posts here at the blog to tell you about some of things we saw in that great state.

The entire state of Pennsylvania is special to me because of my time as a missionary there, but Gettysburg holds an especially special place in my heart because of the feeling that rests there, a place where history literally hung in the balance and turned. A place where thousands of men gave up their lives, on both sides, for something that they believed in. It was place of wounding and later a place of healing, and that is an odd combination to find. So forgive me if I'm a little bit passionate about this place, it is a site that I think everyone needs to visit and soak in its history.

How to Get There

Getting to Gettysburg is not particularly difficult, assuming that you are using a modern GPS system which I assume most of you are. There are a few navigational things to keep in mind however. When you visit the battlefield if you are not on a guided tour you will be following the Auto Tour route, which is outlined in red on the park map. You will probably not be stopping at every stop on this tour as that would take a lot of time, so before hand you should map out the stops that you especially want to visit. Then you should follow the route as marked on the map, we began by attempting to go backwards, and that was not a good choice. It puts you against the flow of traffic and will cause you problems in finding signs and with one way roads. 

When you go to the visitor center there is plenty of parking so you should be fine unless you are there at a particularly busy time. Be aware that backpacks are not allowed in the visitor center and museum so leave those in your car or bus. 

What You Will See

Visitor Center

I recommend that you start with visitor center so that you can see the film, cyclorama, and museum before going to the battlefield, I think this help to put the places you see in perspective. If you arrive early however you will have to wait for the visitor center to open at 8 am. In the visitor center you can purchase a combined ticket for the film, cyclorama and the museum. It is $12.50 for adults and $8.50 for children.

Film

There is a film that helps to put the battle of Gettysburg in historical context. It is pretty well put together and certainly worth watching. The Civil War involves complex political issues and while the film certainly has a pro north bias it does do a good job of showing some of the issues at hand. 

Cyclorama

From the film you are taken directly upstairs to view the cyclorama. The cyclorama is a 360 degree hand done oil painting of the last day of the Battle of Gettysburg. You will see an impressive presentation here using the cyclorama and projection. This will help you to get a sense for where different action went on during the last day of the battle.

The cyclorama is also important for its own historical significance because it was created to help people learn about the battle and was featured in multiple locations before making its permanent home in Gettysburg. I think it is definitely worth seeing while you are at Gettysburg, I like it better than the film actually. 

Museum

Gettysburg features a well put together museum that leads you through the history of the battle from the beginnings of the Civil War to the giving of the Gettysburg Address. The museum and the film are meant to compliment each other ands they follow a similar pattern and portions of the film are featured throughout the exhibits. If you watched the film before going to the museum you don't have to sit and watch these clips. 

The exhibits in the museum are fairly text heavy which makes it hard to take everything in. There is no audio guide for the museum so you are left to read everything if you want the information. There are plenty of places to sit down and take rests to watch film clips. There are a few fun interactive throughout the museum that give you chance to engage a little with history. 

Battlefield

The battlefield is of course the main event, and your time at the visitor center should really be aimed at setting the stage for your battlefield tour. If you decide like we did to do the tour on your own you should follow the auto tour route. You can get a map from the rangers at the the visitor center. As I said previously try to plan out the stops you want to make before leaving the visitor center and then follow the route in numeric order.

Be aware that there are hundreds of monuments at Gettysburg, ranging from tiny stone markers, to information plaques, to monoliths, to statues, to buildings. You cannot stop to read them all, but when you do stop at particularly important locations you might want to walk a little bit to see some of the markers nearby. You can also drive slowly along the road, especially if you are there on a less busy day, and see at least some of the state names on the larger markers.

Some of the places I suggest stopping are the eternal peace flame, the Longstreet tower, Little Round Top, Devil's Den, and the Pennsylvania monument. If you had a relative who fought in the battle it would be worth your while to figure out where they were positioned and see whatever monuments are there.

Longstreet Observation Tower

The battlefield can take as much time as you have and will likely make up the bulk of your visit. It is nice to be able to look out and just ponder what happened here and why. Sometimes it is so peaceful now that it almost hard to remember that the reason we visit is because so many men died here in an incredibly bloody conflict.

Cemetery 

The cemetery is an important part of Gettysburg and worth your time to visit. The cost of the war becomes more real when you look down rows and rows of graves. This of course is where President Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address at the dedication of the cemetery so it is an excellent place to reflect on those immortal words.

The parking lot of cemetery is located up the hill from the cemetery and is just a gravel lot with cord showing parking places. The large cemetery entrance off the street does not actually allow for entrance by car so that can be a little confusing. 

Sum Up

Gettysburg is an extremely important historical site and one you should definitely visit if you can. It is a long excursion to do it well so plan on at least half a day for it. You will probably be pretty tired by the end of it and kids definitely will be. Since everything is accessible by roads though there isn't a ton of walking you have to do, so that helps some.

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.