Want value in Venice? Use my Bellini index!
Frank Barrett launches our new series showing you how to get the very best post-Brexit short break bargains...
BREXIT has been a body blow for the shortbreak traveller. In truth, the pound hasn’t been in particularly robust health against the euro since 2008, but last year’s vote to leave the EU made things far worse.
To highlight the rise in prices, let me offer you the Harry’s Bar Bellini cocktail index.
Harry’s Bar is the hallowed place in Venice where the Bellini cocktail was invented (it’s made from fresh peach juice and prosecco).
It has been a favourite hang-out for everybody from Orson Welles and Ernest Hemingway to Nicole Kidman and Woody Allen. It has never been cheap, but in previous years I’ve been happy to bear the financial pain to enjoy a bona fide travel experience.
Five years ago, when the pound was worth €1.25, a Bellini cost €18, which then worked out at £14.40. Today the Bellini is €21, or £18 at today’s exchange rates, a rise of 25 per cent in five years.
Of course, other factors are in play in Venice. Prices can pushed up by rising demand: with the huge growth in the number of Chinese visitors, for example, tourist businesses in Venice are cashing in.
Do not despair, however. In this first of a series about finding better post-Brexit value for money in popular short-break destinations, I offer useful tips to enjoy more bang for your holiday euros.
My first tip, not surprisingly, perhaps, is: steer clear of Harry’s Bar. There are plenty of supermarkets in Venice that will sell you a litre bottle of prosecco and a box of peach juice for a total of £4.50, allowing you at least two days’ supply of Bellinis in the privacy of your hotel room (for less than a quarter of the price of a single Harry Bar’s cocktail).
WHERE TO STAY
IT MAKES sense to choose accommodation in less popular – but still attractive – parts of the city. Giudecca, for example, is a separate island but just several minutes by water bus from St Mark’s Square.
At the far west of the island is the Molino Stucky Hilton (hilton. com), a huge, 370-room, five-star hotel in a converted neo-Gothic flour mill. At the beginning of April, I paid £200 a night, including breakfast – less than half the ‘normal’ rate.
Also look for unusual accommodation options, such as the excellent ‘Yacht Bert’ (yachtbertvenezia.com): a 100ft luxury yacht with six en suite cabins where the price also includes breakfast. Situated next to the Biennale Gardens, five minutes’ walk from the Santa Elena vaporetto stop, it is perfectly located, with rooms from £127 a night.
On Giudecca, check out the stylish Generator Hostel (generator hostels.com), which has smart double rooms from £28 per night.
In Venice it seems that every other building is a church, so no surprise that the city’s religious institutions are making a pitch for tourism. The lovely cloister that used to accommodate Redentore monks – on the Giudecca – now offers accommodation at £400 a week for a double room (istituto venezia.com).
Monastery Stays (monastery stays.com) lists convents and monasteries that offer ‘hotel-quality’ accommodation to men and women. It has details of more than half a dozen religious institutions where you can stay in Venice, including the Istituto San Giuseppe, which offers attractive convent accommodation from £38pp per night.
The monks of San Giorgio in Maggiore have five guest rooms and no set fees – you make what you consider an appropriate contribution. If you’ve never tried Airbnb before, Venice might be the perfect place to put it to the test, with more than 300 properties listed from £30 a night.
EATING OUT
IN VENICE, the tourist army marches on pizza, freely available from £1.50 a slice which you can eat standing up at a bar.
There are more than 1,200 restaurants. I haven’t tried them all but I can put hand on heart and say that I’ve never had a bad meal.
The further away from St Mark’s Square or the railway station, the better and cheaper the restaurant is likely to be.
For an authentic Venice experience, visit Bar All’Arco, a stone’s-
throw from the Rialto vegetable market. This is an osteria (casual tavern) which serves cicheti (bar snacks): some snacks and a couple of glasses of prosecco leaves change from £10.
SPECIAL BREAK
FOR a celebration break, when cost is less of an object, where better to choose than the Venice hotel that staged the wedding of George and Amal Clooney: the Belmond Cipriani (belmond.com/ hotel-cipriani-venice).
It’s not hard to see why this has become an A-list favourite. In summer there is no finer place to relax than beside the absurdly large swimming pool, or you can wander the huge gardens, if only to meet up with the hotel’s gorgeous floppy-eared pet rabbit Tobias. I’m not sure how they stop him eating the vast beds of home-grown veg that form a key part of the dishes served up at Cipriani’s Michelin-starred Oro restaurant.
If there is a heaven, expect it to be almost identical to the insanely magnificent Cipriani hotel. Accommodation costs from £500 a night – but it’s worth every penny.
AFFORDABLE SIGHTS
WITH an unlimited water-bus pass, you can travel up and down the Grand Canal and enjoy one of the best bus rides in the world – as well as using the pass to travel to other islands such as Murano, Burano and Torcello. Take a look at San Michele, the cemetery island in the lagoon with the graves of composer Stravinsky, dancer Diaghilev and writer Ezra Pound. My favourite building is the Santa Maria dei Miracoli, an extraordinary 14th Century church, one of the most fabulous buildings not just in Venice but possibly the world. Free walking tours of Venice are available twice daily from JMWalkingTour (jmwalkingtour.org) – you just need to register in advance via the website.
GETTING AROUND
INVEST in the unlimited travel pass for the water-bus vaporetto: you can buy tickets for one, two or three days for £17, £26 and £34 – or pay £51 for seven days (there’s a big ticket office in Piazzale Roma).
Travelling to Venice from Marco Polo airport or from Treviso airport costs £7 one-way. The taxi from Marco Polo charges a flat fare of £34. Further information, visit veneziaunica.it/en/.