On our Italy road trip, we also visited Venice for a day. It was our first major place to visit on our 3-week long road trip throughout Italy. Surely- one day is not enough time to get a full feeling about Venice, but enough to know that we would like to go back there.
We visited Venice at the end of April and we were blessed with warm and clear spring weather. Ideal for walking around in Venice and cross many of the beautiful bridges. There are over 400 bridges in Venice crossing over 150 canals.
We were in luck to find places where there were no other tourists yet. Only some locals doing their morning errands. We were able to take some photos with only us on the picture which is always a plus on major tourist destinations. It was like the calm before the storm when we walked back towards the
Free parking near Venice
When you are going to Venice with a car, then there are 2 main spots where people usually leave their cars – to the parking lot in Mestre train station or to one of the parking garages in Venice. The parking garage will cost you about 24-32€ and it is possible to book it online. We were already planning to park in Venice, so we didn’t worry much about finding a parking lot (as we understood, the parking garage in Venice should be pretty easily findable) or driving into the ZTL zone in Mestre (we visited Venice before we found this ZTL Radar mobile app). But the night before the Venice, we accidentally heard a recommendation to park free in Mestre. FREE!
We found this idea tempting to try out. And if everything will fail, we can still park in Venice.
So, we ended up parking free on the street of Mestre, in Marghera district. It was a 10-minute walk from the train station. Considering the hours that we walked in Venice, it was literally nothing. Since we were planning to leave Venice on daylight, and Marghera district looked quite safe, we were not overly worried about our car or our safety.
We paid only 1.30€ per train ticket, so in total 5.20€ (there was 2 of us). Train drove to Venice for approximately 10 minutes and they are running very often.
The charm of the Venice
We have different opinions on Venice- Kätlin finds that Venice is really charming, Janar is not as impressed as She. But we both agree on one thing- to see the real beauty of Venice, you must visit the side areas, where there are much fewer people. After we had been wandering around on the sides of Venice, we decided to look around in the
When we reached Piazza San Marco it was afternoon already and there was a massive crowd. And it was not even the prime season- we visited Venice in April. Felt an instant urge to leave as soon as possible. It seems that there is a tourists “highway” between the train station and San Marco.
PS. Most of the charming cafes/restaurants seemed to be on the left side of the center (when you are coming from the train station and are facing the prime canal). Or maybe it’s just less crowded and feels more authentic.
Riding on the canals
When people are thinking about Venice, one of the first things that will come to your mind
If you want to get the experience of riding on the canals of Venice, but you don’t want to spend 100€, you can always ride with more affordable public transportation water buses (Vaporetto). A ticket will cost about 7.50€ per 1 ride or around 20€ for a 1-day ticket.
Not so charming Venice
Venice is not only a charming- at the same time, it can also be very dirty. But only when looking very close 🙂 It’s probably due the heavy traffic that spins up mud and other debris. Luckily overall look didn’t feels so dirty.
The experience you get from Venice depends on a lot of the weather. We were lucky and it was warm and sunny – so our feelings were mostly positive. But everything looks a little greyer on a rainy day, and constant rain can definitely pull down the good emotions about Venice.
People have been worrying over smell from canals, but we didn’t notice anything. When doing some research about it, it seems to be an urban legend that should be debunked. It was more problematic about 20 years ago, but the city has made some improvements on sewerage and smell shouldn’t be a problem anymore.
Violin music in Venice
In the movies, there is always playing violin music in the street of Venice. We have a bummer for you- it is not real! And since we didn’t get our romantic dinner with violin music in Venice- we just made one by ourselves 🙂
Hey! Nice article. Very informative.
Could you kindly share the location where you parked the car in Mestre? Thanks!.
Thank you!
Sorry for the late response. We just drove around and looked for an available spot in the residential area.
Hi! Great post. Quick question about parking in Maghera: Is the tunnel to cross the railroad safe? On google maps it looks kind of dark and isolated (maybe even too much graffiti around it).
Thanks!
We do not dare to give you a definite answer in this regard, as we do not walk around there on a daily basis. We were there during the daytime and we did not feel unsafe. However, we went there several years ago, maybe things have changed in the meantime.