Top 10 tips for Venice
Vaporetto tickets The second best way to get around carless Venice is by vaporetto or water bus. One trip will set you back €7.50, however a one-day, unlimited trips pass costs €20 and a three-day pass is 40. Well worth it, especially in summer.
Fruit Don’t touch the fruit. There are still street markets in Venice, but the stall holders lost patience long ago. If you’re dying to hear some words in the local Venetian language, squeeze a peach and your wish will come true.
Caffe Florian The travel guides warn against sitting down at a cafe in St Mark’s Square. Forget them. Yes, a hot chocolate and a cake at Florian will set you back €15, but you’re in an 18-century cafe in the square that’s been called ‘‘Europe’s drawing room’’. Enjoy the moment and pinch the pennies somewhere else. Harry’s Bar On the other hand, many guides recommend the nearby Harry’s Bar, a favourite haunt of Ernest Hemingway. Forget them. Harry’s Bar is a sad and joyless caricature of its former self. Unhappy tourists served by surly waiters down their €18 Bellinis and wonder why they bothered. Go to Mass Even the smallest and most remote Venetian churches have breathtaking artworks. To enjoy them at some leisure, put on some grown-up clothes and go to Mass: 7am every day at St Mark’s Basilica and 11am on Sundays at the great Palladian church of St Giorgio Maggiore. Supermarket shopping Venice is expensive, but several small supermarkets serve the local population. They sell prosciutto and cheese that’s twice as good anything you’d get in a fancy Auckland grocery, for at least half the price; also fresh fruit and good cheap wine. Querini Stampalia The architecture – Carlo Scarpa’s reworking of the interior of the Renaissance palazzo – is great, but so is the gallery shop. The best of its kind in Venice.
Signor Bloom Signor Bloom makes wooden models of Venetian buildings and sells them in a little shop on the edge of the characterful Campo San Barnaba in Dorsoduro. Corte Sconta A Venice institution, this courtyard seafood restaurant in the Castello district is old school, but they know what they’re doing, and they’re very good at it.
The Accademia Gallery The art history books come alive in this amazing storehouse of Renaissance art. Bellini, Giorgione, Veronese, Tintoretto, Veronese and Tiepolo. Pace yourself. It’s too much for one visit . . .