Venezia! 5 Things to Know
- Goose Weber
- Jun 5, 2019
- 3 min read
My mother and I just recently returned from a trip to Europe. We stayed for about a week hopping from city to city. The trip was mainly centered around a hotel stay in Venice, Italy at the beautiful Hotel Danieli. We spent two nights there and learned some things along the way. If you have a trip to Venice soon, or lifelong dreams of it, here are some things you should know.
1. Bring the proper outlet converter. You would think this is a simple task but it is something we did not accomplish, ha. I already own two types of European outlet converters so I thought surely I would be covered. Wrong. The type you need is pictured down below. Click this link to take you to a site to purchase one.
2. Book yourself a water taxi from the airport. The airport is on the mainland and you will need to take either the public transportation (almost like a bus boat), a water taxi, or private taxi which could potentially have the option of dropping you off right in front of your hotel. The private taxi can be VERY pricey though. We did have the option to take one and be dropped off at the Hotel Danieli but it was 250€!! I just booked us a water taxi instead which came out to 75€ for the both of us. It was a shared taxi but a fun and quick ride! Just search Venice water taxi on Google and you will find tons of options.
3. Weather in the spring is a bit spontaneous. I was checking the weather just about every week for 6 months leading up to the trip (we were there May 14-16). A silly notion, I know, but I was just hoping for a general idea. Well about three days before we were set to go on the trip, a small cold front came through. However, about two weeks leading up to the trip, the weather was consistently around mid 60s. I was very much prepared with my sundresses and cute sandals. I had to do essentially repack my suitcase for the low 50s weather. You're practically on the water so mid 50s feels a lot colder than what it actually is. It also rained while we were there so if you can, bring an umbrella just in case... Picture above featuring my hat and trench coat; and picture below featuring my mom in her poncho, all for warmth.
4. Be prepared to shop and eat. Venice is LOADED with shops and restaurants. I was kicking myself for over-packing my suitcase because I zero room to do any shopping. My mom was eating it up. She even left with a huge Venetian mask... Then there are the restaurants. Rows and rows of cafes for a quick espresso or nice sit-down places for some of their world famous seafood plates like squid ink pasta. Thankfully all the walking helped me work off all of the pastries and macchiatos I was eating and drinking. Yikes.
5. The infamous Gondola ride, sigh. Let me just say that if this is something you have always dreamed of doing and you absolutely must do it once in your life, then by all means! As for me, I could have done without it. Most of the rides were very expensive for a short amount of time, even more expensive if you wanted just a singles or couples ride. I found one that offered a shared boat (we didn't really mind) as well as a "serenade". Here I'm thinking "oh boy, the gondola man is going to sing to us while we casually glide along the canals of Venice". Again, wrong. It was a grouping of about 6 gondolas, one man singing to the lot of us so you could barely hear him, and because it was a shared boat, the gondola operator told us not to move at all or it would throw off the balance and we would tip over. So we sat there like statues for about 20 minutes whilst struggling to hear the faint rendition of Volare. I did read about gondola rides ahead of time and the consensus was about 50/50. Some people had the time of their lives whereas some felt the way I feel. But hey, at least I can say I have ridden a gondola in Venice. And the photo op wasn't too terrible.
I hope you enjoyed this post! If have been to Venice before and thought of some other useful tidbits you would like to pass along, feel free to leave them in the comments down below. Thank you so much reading. Until next time, ciao!
Goose, out.
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