Venice, Italy

Venice was a really lovely quick weekend. We spent it wandering, eating and looking in little shops. Everything was so beautiful!

Hotel

For this trip we stayed at the Hotel Indigo Sant Elena which was in a quieter part of the island away from all the main tourist areas. We really enjoyed this as we felt like we had a little escape and there was a cute park nearby as well. The hotel itself was also nice and cozy.

Day 1

Venice was one of those places we did very little (close to zero) planning of. We mostly just wandered to see what kind of fun things we could find! We had heard Venice wasn’t a good food city and was really expensive but we had a great experience. Just walk away from the tourist areas!

Cicchetti

Venice is known for little tapas-like bites they call cicchetti. You can get them and an Aperol Spritz (which was invented in Venice!) at a bunch of places and just stand outside for a few quick bites. A lot of them are like little open faced sandwiches and they were a lot of fun to try!

Wandering

Mostly we did a lot of wandering around to take pictures of all the canals and bridges. We also found a lovely square to sit in the sun and drink an Aperol Spritz :)

Gondola ride

Of course we had to take a gondola ride! The prices are regulated so you can just walk up to any of them and pay about €80 for a 40 minute ride. It was really cool and for us definitely worth it!

View from top of the mall

There’s a very fancy mall (T Fondaco Dei Tedeschi) with a rooftop where you can see all of venice. It’s free to make a reservation (if it gets too busy they only let up people with a reservation) and was a nice view!

Libreria Acqua Alta

This bookshop is pretty famous online and had a long line to get in (at the time we had to show our covid QR codes that we were vaccinated). It was super crowded which made it a little less neat, but there’s a bunch of cats that live in here and it seems like it would be really neat if you managed to go when it wasn’t crowded.

Lido for dinner

We headed to the nearby island of Lido for dinner (pay for a transit pass so you can take the water bus!). We wandered around a bit and found a cute little seafood restaurant to eat at. Unfortunately I cannot remember the name and can’t find it on Google so we’ll all have to forever wonder what it was.

Day 2

Ferry ride to Murano

On day 2 we took a ferry to Murano. I wanted to go to Burano but the line for the ferry was INSANE so we bailed and decided to explore Murano. It’s famous for blown glass so we looked in all the little shops. We also found some great gelato which we ate at the canal in the sun :)

Il Bocconcino

We had some amazing paninis at this little hole in the wall. The lady who owned it was very friendly and the sandwiches were fantastic.

Vecia Gina

For our last night we had pizza at a place near our hotel far from the tourists. It was very chill and the pizza was actually very tasty!

In summary: Venice was amazing, would highly recommend just wandering around and enjoying!