Four extra nights in Venice tips request

My friends in Venice always April is the best month in the city. Hopefully it's still early enough that you'll still see the real Venetians populating bars, waving and calling out to friends as they pass by and living the normal everyday Italian lives before the real crush of tourists descends. I was there in March this year and the weekend days were swelled with day trippers but the evenings - especially weekdays - were still that way.

Cheap things to do to experience Venice. Take the traghetto - for about 2e you get to ride across the canal in a gondola. There are set stops but the easiest to find is from San Marco across to Punta della Dogana. Take this ride - especially early in the morning - and walk through to the Accademia bridge. Guggenheim Palazzo and Museum is interesting on that side if modern art is at all your thing.

You can buy a multi-day vaporetto pass or now the gates feature tap in with your credit card that is supposed to give you the best price for your stay equivalent to the best pass price. (See an earlier thread on this.) Of course you always need to use the same card and there are good reasons for wanting a pass if you don't want to constantly get out your credit card. But the 72 hour and week long pass are great savings if you ride everyday.

For the price of vaporetto ride you can tour Burano and/or Murano easily enough.

You might think about the Venice jazz club. It was on my list but I haven't gotten to go yet, but heard good things:
https://www.venicejazzclub.com/

Venice is one of the few Italian cities where you can pay American prices to eat and drink if you want to. But there are still plenty of cheaper places off the main drags. Wine Bar 5000 has interesting wines, cicchetti, a posh interior and outside tables on the corner of a little canal as one example. The Dorsoduro neighborhood is as close as Venice gets to student area so it is cheaper and less populated by tourists if you want to explore that area. A tour of the Venice Jewish ghetto is an interesting thing to do - with a little background you can simply walk it yourself. If you're interested watch the BBC series "Hidden Cities" about Venice and the section on the ghetto is especially interesting.

Have a great trip,
=Tod

With four days, I would suggest one or two day trips. Padua, Vicenza and Treviso are all a short train ride from Venice. If you want to venture a little farther, consider Trieste or Verona.

If you want a transport filled day, go out to visit the town of Chioggia.
Vaporetto, bus, and ferry with multiples of each to get there.
An interesting day and interesting way to get there along the islands of Lido and Pellestrina.

Perhaps a day trip to Ravenna?

I love Ravenna, but the fastest trains from Venice take 2 hr. 22 min. For me that's too long to spend on a train when heading to a city with a lot to see.

We were in Venice for 4 nights this April. Weather was fabulous, so I hope you get the same. We enjoyed the Frari church. We walked most of the neighbourhoods. We used the vaporetti quite a bit, and for the most part they were not too busy. If they were then walking further to a less busy spot helped. For example we caught the vaporetto at the end of dorsoduro and then took it all the way through the grand canal.
We went to Burano, Mazorbo and Torcello. We found Burano to be rather busy, but enjoyed Torcello very much. The church there was under renovation, but was still lovely and we had a wonderful meal on Torcello. We also found a nice little winery on Mazorbo.

The busiest spots were the Rialto bridge and the section between it and St Marks. If you can avoid that as much as possible the rest of Venice felt quiet.

With only four days in Venice, my plan would be to stay in town. If you have any interest in Venetian history, economy, or - especially - art, take a look at Venice Escapes. venicescapes.org It's in Rick's Venice book, but the website is excellent, and much more informative. Michael leads amazing tours; we make it a point to take one of his tours each time we are in Venice. Check out the website.

And just for fun, consider Alessandro's cichetti tour! He also has another tour, backstreets of Venice, or something similar. He's in Rick's book, but here's a start: https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/italy/alessandro-schezzini-cicchetti-tour-venice

Try to visit the area behind the shops in Murano. The "Virtus Venezia Roll Club" may not be interesting in itself, but the area around it reminds you that Venice is also a place where people live.

There's so much to see in Venice that I don't know why anyone would visit Venice but take a train elsewhere. I spent 5 nights in Venice and didn't see everything of interest.

There are a ton of museums and old churches to visit, not just the popular ones.

I loved the Fortuny museum which had a wonderful collection of Fortuny's fabrics, furnishings, and art. I loved it. There were very few people in the museum when I was there and the rooms were huge so you never felt crowded. Compare that to the Guggenheim museum which was a crush of people elbow to elbow. It's difficult to appreciate artwork when there were people jamming the small rooms and hallways.

There's a mask museum but it wasn't open when I had planned to go.

There are out-of-the-way neighborhoods to walk through which aren't jammed with tourists. I stayed in the Cannaregio section and there was a small park-like area along the waterfront where I sat every night and watched the boats. It's in the Jewish section.

As far as the islands--I did go to the Murano glass museum but that's all. I wasn't interested in shopping nor in lace and I didn't want to take the time to go to all 3 islands. A friend of mine went to the Lido but actually never saw the beach...I wouldn't bother going there if I didn't see the beach.

As others have said, there are plenty of things to see and do in Venice. We enjoyed the Doge Place Secret Itineraries tour and the Clock Tower tour. Padua with the beautiful Scrovegni Chapel is an easy day trip by train if you have time.

We have found affordable lodging in the area near the Venice Rail Station.

As for Burano, maybe try for rarefied nocturnal atmosphere by taking the very final vaparetto back? You won't regret it.
I am done. The end