48 Hours in Venice: Vivaldi and Gondolas

For years, when asked about my bucket list, the only thing I was able to say was “to go to Venice”. Maybe it sounds basic, but as a history lover, a romantic, and a girl who loves the water, Venice sounded like a dream. I had never really had the opportunities to go to Italy as I had to go elsewhere so I was starting to get nervous that I would never visit Venice before it sinks. When I decided I was going to spend some time in Italy this summer WWOOFing I knew I wanted to do some travel around the country afterwards and my first destination was going to be the one and only Venice.

Day 1

The day after my last day working on the farm, I took the train from Bologna to Venice. It was only about 2 hours. Although it took a little longer because of a delay which caused my to miss my connection but I only arrived maybe 20 minutes later than planned. As the train pulled out of Venezia Mastre and onto the bridge that connected it to Venice, the excitement broiled.

I had my Italian music playing my earbuds. Then it pulled into Venezia Santa Lucia and I stepped into the Italian heat. It smelled different than the farm. It was a bit more fishy for sure. My friend that was meeting me still hadn’t arrived so I planned to walk to the airbnb an drop my stuff off. I pulled up the directions and that’s where I went.

We stayed at Joivy DoveVivo, the student accommodation at the university which they rent out in the summer. It was about 30 minutes from the main part of the city, but not even 10 minutes from the train station which made it worth it. I really liked it and would recommend it to anyone coming to Venice. Its quite nice because away from all the busyness. Luckily even though I had arrived early, they had the room ready so I was able to drop my stuff off and spend some time in the air conditioning which I had gone 4 weeks without. I don’t normally like air conditioning, but in that moment it felt so good!

While I waited for my friend, Sam, to arrive I walked around the town a little bit. I picked a direction and pretty much just walked that way. I got to see all the smaller canals in the less touristy areas which was really nice. That was my first impression of Venice and I was starting to think maybe there wasn’t as many tourists in Venice as I thought there would be. I got a text from Sam that she was on the ferry from the airport and would be arriving soon, so I stopped at a cafe to buy a panino for lunch and then met her at the dock.

After some chill time at the room we got ready to head out. We stopped at a couple stores including this bracelet store I saw on TikTok called The M. They sell bracelets with Murano glass charms. You can make your own bracelet or choose one that is already made and add your own charm. I found a bracelet I really liked so I added a pink, blue, and red charm to it. These colors stand for happiness, luck, and love. Our next stop was the rubber duck store. I had never been to one of these before, but I got a kick out of the gondolier duck.

Our next stop was the main event of the night: a Vivaldi concert. Antonio Vivaldi was a famous Baroque composer and violinist from Venice. You probably know him from his composition of The Four Seasons. There are many orchestras and choirs putting on Vivaldi concerts throughout the beautiful churches of Venice, but most are over 30 euros, which isn’t a bad price, but as twenty-somethings trying to travel on a budget, we decided to go to the free concert at the music conservatory. It wasn’t nearly on the same scale as many of the other concerts, but I liked that we were supporting music students. They had many guests playing with them as well that were all very good. I was very happy with the choice we made.

The concert was not even an hour and a half, so we still had some daylight when we left the beautiful conservatory. The last thing we were going to do before heading back and calling it a night was grabbing something to eat for dinner. I wanted to trying ‘cicchetti’, which is the Venetian version of tapas. Most bars in Venice serve you these little bruschetta like bites when you order a drink. I saw in my research that this is a great way to get dinner. You can just get drinks and a bunch of cicchetti. I had trouble finding a place to go. The one I wanted to go to didn’t look open so we just went to the closest place that looked good, since we both were getting hungry. We went to Cantina do Spade because it looked really cute, but we ended up not liking the food that much. We got one of each of the cicchetti, but rather than being bruschetta, they were mostly fried like croquettes.

We weren’t really a fan and were still hungry afterwards, so after I finished my aperol spritz we went to a pasta take out spot. These are all over the cities in Italy and I love it! It is basically like a fast food version of pasta, but it still tastes like quality pasta. I got Amatriciana which is pasta with a tomatoes sauce, cheese, and pork. It tasted so good, even after the 30 minute walk back to the room.

Day 2

What I learned from our first full day in Venice is that Sam and I would not be the type to actually leave when we say we are going to leave. Leaving at 9 am turned until leaving closer to 10 am. I kind of wanted to get an early start during this trip so that I would have time to see everything, but we both really needed to sleep in, which is ok because we had more than enough time to see things, but that is partly because I messed up a little bit, which we will get into.

We started by walking to Piazza San Marco, or St. Mark’s Square. We stopped for breakfast at a little crepe shop along the canal on the way. Crepes House By Pepe was exactly what we needed. I got the Pepe to go and a cappuccino. We were told on our way out to watch out for the seagulls. The seagulls here are something else, which is another thing I will get to in a bit.

On the way to the square we came across a protest. I took pictures so that I could google translate the signs. I believe they were protesting pickpocketing as well as child labor which I found to be an interesting combo. When we got to Piazza San Marco we pulled out our phones and listened to Rick Steve’s walking tour. I love Rick Steve’s audio guides and would highly recommend it to anyone. Rick Steve’s travels the same way I do, with a interest in culture, food and history, so I know I will always get exactly what I want from his guides. The tour around the square was about 40 minutes and explained the basilica, the new and old offices, the clock tower, the campanile, Doge’s palace, and other little tidbits in and around the square. It was a great introduction to the square and gave my some guidance as to the cafes, shops, and attractions I wanted to spend some time in.

After some picture taking and shopping we went into a little cafe for gelato. We ultimately decided just to take it to go because all the ice cream on the sit down menu was over 20 euros and I had already spent a bit of money shopping. I bought some art from a woman by the grand canal. I love buying art in each place I go.

Then I went up the campanile, the bell tower in the square. I was so happy to find out it had an elevator, so I didn’t have to climb stairs! I have a tendency to always want to climb towers for a good view when I am traveling but immediately regret it halfway when my legs are dying and the heat starts to get to me. The view was great, but there were way too many people. Everyone was trying to get their pictures taken or take the best picture. That meant there was no room to really go up to the windows and if you found a spot you needed to move right away because there were so many people, so nobody was just enjoying the view. I love taking pictures, but I also love being in the moment and it was really hard to do that there. It was a bit disappointing, but I don’t regret going up the tower.

This is where things start to stray from the plan. Travel never goes to plan, which I why I try to never have expectations. In my research I believed that you could buy tickets on the spot for the basilica. Well that is not true. The basilica wasn’t open in the morning due to Sunday mass, so we went as soon as it opened, but we found out while waiting in line that you had to buy your tickets online and they were sold out for the day. I could have bought them online, but I thought you could buy them on the spot for cheaper, which is why I didn’t. I was so frustrated, but we adapted. We changed out train for the next day to leave a couple hours late so we could tour the basilica as soon as we could in the morning. And this time we did buy the tickets online. So the question was what do we do now? I had also thought about visiting Doge’s Palace, but ultimately decided not to due to the price. That left us with only a couple other things: a gondola ride and the popular book shop I wanted to visit, Liberia Aqua Alta.

So we went to the bookshop. I wasn’t planning to buy anything because books take a lot of space and weight in a suitcase, but I still wanted to see what they had and it was supposed to be really cute with good views of the canal. It was in fact very touristy. It was a bit overwhelming inside as well. It was small and there was a lot of people. Basically I did a loop around, took my pictures, bought a book mark, and left. There was a cat that calls the store its home, but I didn’t see him which was really sad!

On the way back to the square to find us a gondolier we stopped for some pizza for lunch. There is nothing like some cheese and herbs on some focaccia. At the docks I overcame my social anxiety and went up to a group of men dressed in striped shirts to ask about a gondola ride. One with really good English answered me and showed us his list of rides. We ended up going with the most expensive. I know, I’ve talked about being on a budget and saving money, but that is mostly so I could do the once in a lifetime kind of things like this. It cost us a little over 200 euros which is slightly over 100 euros each. Going in to Venice I knew a gondola ride would cost about 100 euros for a 30 minute ride. The one we got was 50 minutes and it included the grand canal and the small canals along with a little bit of a tour, so we thought it was worth it. We got to see the house where Mozart stayed during his time in Venice, as well as the Rialto Bridge and Bridge of Sighs, which is actually next to a prison! Who would have known!

Since we were out of ideas of things to do, I decided to do some shopping. I wanted to do some clothes shopping in Milan, because I love European H&M and Primark, but since we were cutting our time a bit shorter in Milan and now had more time in Venice, I decided to do my shopping now. I bought a couple things, which killed an hour and then we were back on our way to room to chill out for a bit before dinner. This is where the day really took a turn. I got pooped on by a seagull. Luckily we weren’t even 10 minutes away from the room, but it still sucked. I had it in my hair and on my shirt, pants, and shoes. It was frustrating because I was planning to rewear some things on this trip, but luckily Sam had some soap I could use to clean my clothes.

Once I cleaned up and no longer felt like a bird’s toilet we asked the desk workers at the accommodation for some dinner suggestions. We wanted to stay nearby, eating next to the canal by the accommodation. They gave us a place that sounded good, but it sadly turned out to be closed. We both were just not in the mood to really spent a lot of time looking for a place to eat so we went to the other side of the canal to eat at Very Good Pizzeria and Gnoccheria. I was a little worried it would be a bit of a tourist trap, but the food was decent.

I ordered a Hugo Spritz and we got some bruschetta for an appetizer. For dinner I ordered some seafood gnocchi. It was a bit fishy for my taste, but thats ok because I wanted to try something Venetian and Venice is known for its seafood. The food wasn’t anything spectacular, but it was good and I liked being by the canal. I love restaurants where you can sit outside. It was a good way to spend our last night in Venice.

Day 3

We get a day 3 in this trip because of our change in plans! I am happy we spent a little bit more time in Venice. Besides the amount of tourists in Piazza San Marco, I really liked Venice. We walked to the square just like we did the day before. We stopped at the crepe place again, because Sam really liked her crepe. I only got a coffee, because I wanted to try something different for breakfast. I ended up getting a chocolate croissant to go from a cafe near St. Mark’s Basilica.

We made it inside and it was absolutely gorgeous! I used Rick Steve’s audio guide again to tour the basilica, except I forgot my earbuds in my luggage we left at the accommodation, so I just ended up reading the transcript. The inside was golden. This part of Italy had a lot of Byzantine influence, which was definitely reflected inside the basilica. It was one of the prettiest cathedrals I have ever been too, so I was really glad we stayed to do this. The only complaint I have is the disrespectful manner of some of the tourists. This is something you will hear me talk about a lot in my trip to Italy. I have never seen tourist visiting churches like those in Italy. I saw many people dressed inappropriately. I get that the rules say to cover shoulders and knees, but I was a little disappointed to see people wearing crop tops as someone who loves crop tops. I tend to bring a sweater I can button up for going inside churches when traveling. There also was a lot of people taking pictures of and with everything, to an extent that it felt more like a tourist attraction than a place of worship. But for I want to end Venice on a high note, so enjoy more pictures!

I could see myself coming back someday to explore more of the hidden gems in Venice and I would love to see Doge’s Palace as well as the smaller islands, but I would rather come back during a time that isn’t high tourist season. I think Venice has a lot of magic, but it is smothered by all the people. As a history lover with a dream of living in another time, this would be exactly my place. I just wish everyone saw it with the romance that I do.

That is a wrap on Venice! Stay tuned for my next stop on the grand Italian adventure, Milan!