Every time I leave Venice I experience an odd sort of melancholy with a feeling of dread that I may never come back.  I once sat for an afternoon in the living room of an elderly aunt whom I had never met before that day; when it came to leave it was with a lump in my throat that I told her goodbye for I knew I had been with a kindred spirit, albeit for a very short while.  Almost anyone who has walked across the bridges of Venice has a similar emotional connection, for Venice is magical.

Any guidebook or travel website can provide you with the necessary details for Venice’s musts: tour the Doge’s Palace and St Mark’s Basilica, see an opera at La Fenice, have a Bellini at Harry’s Bar (ignore that one.)  My advice for anyone planning to visit Venice is simple:

Stay in a hotel in a good location

Notice I did not say to stay in a good hotel in a good location (no need to break your budget),  just try to find an affordable hotel in the city, preferably with a canal view.  You don’t have to stay at Hotel Danieli with a view of the lagoon to have the Venetian experience; there are plenty of 3-star and 4-star hotels overlooking the narrow canals where you can watch the gondolas go by.  To open the shutters in my hotel room and watch passing motor boats filled with groceries for delivery, and to listen to the singing of the gondoliers was more romantic to me than actually floating down the canals in a gondola, something I’ve never had a desire to do. Once, we stayed in Mestre, a city outside of Venice, to save money (we were traveling with kids and another family.)  From Mestre, you take a bus over a bridge on the lagoon which dumps you onto a footbridge at the city entrance; to do it that way is like staying in Oakland and taking a bus to San Francisco, only worse.  I still get sad when I think about it.

Take a taxi

Many years ago a friend and I were taking a trip around Italy with our starting point in Venice.  Since we took separate flights and would be meeting at the hotel, I was traveling alone.  My husband, certain that some harm would befall me if I intermingled with the Italian riffraff,  insisted I take a taxi from the Marco Polo airport to the hotel rather than get on a public shuttle. Not one to argue over an upgrade, I happily boarded the Venetian water taxi outside the airport and was transported  over the lagoon and through the Grand Canal.  The skyline of Venice is visible from the airport, and as the bell tower of St Mark’s got bigger with each nautical mile we traveled,  automobiles and airplanes disappeared and were replaced by gondolas and ferry boats.   This is the stuff of bucket lists and I highly recommend it.

If you’re not flying into Venice, you’ll probably be taking a train.  Rather than fight the crowds on the vaporetto, or public water bus, splurge a little (actually this is big splurge but remember the gondola ride you skipped?) and take a taxi from your hotel as you leave the city.  It’s a great way to say goodbye.

Get Lost

On my last trip to Venice I traveled with friends and we found ourselves in need of some “alone time” on the Sunday we were there.  We split up after battling the crowds on the Rialto Bridge – it was, after all, the weekend, when Venice bursts with day-trippers – and I decided to explore the San Polo neighborhood while the others shopped and napped.  I started out using the map but quickly lost track of my route (as is usually the case in Venice), and came to a dead end in a small, residential piazza.  

Reversing course, I returned into  civilization where a family,  seated at the patio of a restaurant,  celebrated their daughter’s First Communion.  I continued on, enjoying the adventure enough to select the smaller streets which were bordered by the tall walls of the backs of churches and palazzi. Walking alone through the mazes of  canyon-like streets with no point of reference gave me a sense of uneasiness:  how long  it would take for anyone to find me if I got hit on the head by a falling brick or vat of hot oil? I found the water again, crossing a pretty little bridge which led  to Calle Stretta, “Narrow Street,” where a group of boys with water guns stealthily snuck around the corner in search of the enemy, completely oblivious to the stranger in their midst, and I wondered how many warriors had fallen on these very streets.     

Try to get lost by yourself in Venice and let your imagination run wild.