“Venice, the city of love.” So they say. More like “City of Tourists.” The history of Venice is interesting enough, but overall, we really didn’t like Venice much at all! We wished we would have used that 36 hours up somewhere else on our trip instead of here. Sure, there were some pretty views (see photos below). But, activity-wise and things to see? Experiences? Although we didn’t enjoy Venice as much as we hoped, our hotel was pretty great! Below is a photo from the bedroom window. I thought the best part of Venice was getting there on the train lol. That was fun and we got to see the Italian Countryside on the way.
3 reasons to skip visiting Venice:
- It’s crazy overpriced: Everything, and I do mean everything is so overpriced it’s crazy. From food & drinks to hotels and transportation – everything here is really highly-priced without any sort of quality or good service to back it up.
- Lack of culture: It’s more like spending time in an outdoor mall than being in a European city with rich culture.
- Gondolas: Maybe the ONE thing Nina and I had been looking forward to in Venice was riding around the canals, maybe sipping some Italian wine on a scenic gondola ride. A standard gondola ride is upwards of $100+ and that felt like more of a scam than something fun to do. PASS.
Here are a few of the pretty views from Venice, what you might expect Venice to look like.
What Venice actually looks like
We really didn’t even take that many photos in Venice. A few pretty shots here and there, but more or less, Venice feels like an outdoor shopping mall crammed with sugar and junk shops. Below is what it looked like for the most part. Packed with people everywhere we went. We both thought Venice was far too touristy for our liking and agreed that we never wanted to come back. I hated being crammed everywhere we went with so many people. This is what Instagram photos and Youtube videos don’t show you. Oh, and the cool Gondola boats cruising around the Venice Canals – those are €80 per 25-minute ride! EIGHTY EUROS. Almost $100 bucks to cruise around the canals for 25 minutes. I wouldn’t say we’re cheap people, but we thought that was ridiculous so we passed on a gondola ride.
What we did for the day
We did make it to the famous Cafe Florian in St. Mark’s Square (Piazza San Marco) and enjoyed a couple of cappuccinos and mimosas. Cafe Florian is the oldest coffee house in continuous operation in Italy and one of the oldest in the world. It opened in 1720. There’s a small orchestra playing live music and the weather was gorgeous. It was really nice to sit out and enjoy the moment. Probably probably the most enjoyable 45 minutes of our time in Venice. Aside from our sit-down at Cafe Florian, we spent the majority of the day walking Venice and snacking here and there.
Time to go home
We were flying out the following morning really early at 6 am. At $700/night, we only booked 1 night at our hotel and planned on getting to the airport in the later evening and just relaxing in the Marco Polo Club Lounge for a few hours before boarding our flight at 5 am. At about 7 pm, we checked out and headed to the Marco Polo Airport… To get there, we had to take a water bus. It left from the canal just in front of the hotel and arrived right at the airport.
What we didn’t think about or plan for is not being able to get into the airport so far ahead of our flight. They told us no, come back at 4 am. Instead of sitting there in an uncomfortable chair for the next 6-7 hours, we found a nearby Hilton and got a room. Taxis are also overpriced here, we got dinged $60 dollars for the 9-minute ride! It was worth the comfort before the big trip back home.
When we did finally make it back to the airport in the morning, it was a complete madhouse. We had already checked in so we hit the nonexistent bag drop line and got in pretty quickly and then finally made it to the Marco Polo Lounge for coffee and snacks before taking off.
