Signage on Venice streets?

Although it looks like it's pretty hard to get around, it's actually pretty workable. Many buildings have arrow/signs on them directing you to San Marco and to the Rialto Bridge and Accademia and the train station. Venice is an island and so, even though sometimes I feel like I'm getting lost, I always end up where I want to go. Part of the fun there is in the wandering and it's definitely workable...you'll be ok.

The street names are a little high up on the corners of buildings at most intersections. What I found helpful too for general wandering was that there are arrows on buildings pointing to San Marco in one direction and to Rialto Bridge going the other way. However this is the most common direct way between the two and it is always the most crowded. I call it the shuffle sidewalk and usually prefer finding another route unless I'm really lost and then it gets me oriented again.

Valerie and Mona, thanks! I'm reassured :-)

Joel,
It's not actually hard to find one's way around in Venice. But, if you are looking for certain streets, be sure to not only look ahead as you approach a street, but also behind you once you are "at" the street. We found that often the street names are on a building, but they may not be visible as you approach (they would be on the building behind you as you walked by). I hope that makes sense.....I don't know that I would understand what I just wrote, if I were reading it and had not been to Venice.

But, once you get the hang of scoping all around you, then you will totally start noticing street signs.

And, of course, the old method of counting how many streets you pass and looking for landmarks always helps, as you get acclimated.
The canals really are the "streets" that handle the majority of the "traffic" in Venice. Streets, as we would know them, are mostly for people on foot.

You didn't ask, but if you would like a great hotel in a FABULOUS location, we would not have been more pleased with Hotel Le Isole. It was much less expensive than some of the grand hotels that line the waterfront, but we were also away from the noise and crowds that stuff the waterfront. Nice staff, lovely full breakfast (buffet, plus made-to-order items) served in a quiet courtyard. We had a room that overlooked a quiet(er) canal. We had a little balcony facing one direction on the canal and then a full window facing the other direction. Room was nice. The only surprise was just how small the bathroom was, but we would stay there again, as location was key for us. We were less than five minutes from the heart of San Marcos and the main waterfront, but the quietness of our hotel in the morning/evenings made us feel as though we were miles away!!

You'll enjoy Venice. I was delightfully surprised. And, the advice in Rick's guidebook to catch a vaparetto to see the Grand Canal was spot on. The front desk at our hotel actually gave us the tip as to which vaparetto to catch in order to make a big loop....loved it!

You can "practice" walking around Venice using Google street view. Venice is my favorite city, and when I am feeling homesick I take a nice Google walk to some of the places I love to see.

When my husband and I were there for a month, I was the navigator with my paper maps. I found it easiest to proceed from one campo to the next on our route, and became rather efficient at that. But San Polo still confounded me.

We used google maps with great success in Venice. You could zoom in to even the smallest alleys. We were even able to find a dry route back to our hotel one night after dinner when the streets & even shops & restaurants were flooded - some up to your knees!

Another couple of tips - you might see signs pointing towards a major landmark in a couple of different directions, but that just means there's a choice of which way to go. Also, sometimes the route will go under and through a building.

That is not a worry that should keep you up at night.

How about the old option of asking the locals for directions to your hotel? Talking to people feels good sometimes. Talking to a local shouldn't take too much time away from your staring at Google Maps on the iPhone and it's fun.

Helpful Language skills:
DESTRA: right
SINISTRA: Left
DIRITTO: straight
PONTE: bridge
ANGOLO: corner
CANALE: canal
CALLE: street (in Venitian)
CAMPO: square

Note that I was not suggesting using Google maps to actually navigate around Venice while there---I advised to use a paper map. The reference to Google street view was to suggest looking at it now to get a feel for what the city actually looks like on the ground. You can "walk" down a Calle, under a sotoportego, over a bridge, stop and look in a shop window, even practice trying to find a specific address. Drop a pin somewhere on the satellite view map and give it a try.

A good paper map is the Streetwise series. Laminated, very detailed.

During the day, you can easily navigate from place to place.
But at night, finding where you're going can be more difficult.
In Venice while I was college--and during a late night on the town--I felt like i was a rat in a maze.

Thanks everyone for the great tips! I will be on the lookout for arrows, or street signs high up or behind me. The square-to-square hops, and counting streets, are two strategies that I have used many times but had forgotten about (hey, I'm 65), so thanks for pointing them out. The google street view idea is brilliant; now I know what I'll be doing when I want to procrastinate :-) (But I won't be using it in Europe, since I don't want to pay the cellular data rates there.) As for a map, I do like the Streetwise and have several of them, but have fallen in love with my Marco Polo, even though it is a lot bigger than the Streetwise when unfolded. And as for asking directions, that will likely happen, though I am leery of bothering the locals; I have read that there are 57,000 Venetians and 16.5 million tourists in Venice every year, which works out (I think) to 289 tourists for every Venetian. I used to live in Balboa, CA, which is overwhelmed by beachgoers on weekends, but I bet Balboa is like Alice Springs compared to living in Venice. We will be following Rick's (and one poster's) advice to leave the very crowded areas to walk around, eat, etc.

Believe it or not, I can actually add a couple of things. I always carry a small pair of binoculars in the (Pacsafe) day bag, primarily because we are birding obsessives, and you never know what you will see when strolling in a park. But they also come in very handy when a street name is small, or on a far corner across a wide street. And for this upcoming trip, we are going back to carrying a compass; primarily for when we rent a car in southern Tuscany, but it might also be useful on a small island. I can see just bearing NE or whatever and coming to some artery sooner or later.

Roberto's post made me remember a time in Venice when I was lost.
I would ask (in my extremely meager Italian) for help and would understand only the first few words of the reply.
So I would go as far as I understood, hopefully around a corner and out of sight, and then ask the next likely person.
This went on for a while, but I eventually got to where I was going ... and it was fun!

Joel, there's a way to use Google Maps without paying for data. It has been discussed on the forum, and I hope someone will come along and give you some tips or a link to one of the earlier discussions.

I use a smartphone app called "CityMaps2Go Pro", also known as
"Ulmon Pro". I paid $4 or $5 for the app (from the Google PlayStore since I have an Android device), and I can load as many maps as I want, as often as I want. Maps are available for both major cities and for regions. Load the maps you need before you leave home or when you're in a hotel with free Wi-Fi. I have spent more than 7 months in Europe and haven't paid for data yet.

The maps you've loaded will always be accessible as long as your battery isn't dead. As you're walking around, you can touch the little find-me icon, and your device will get your current location from a GPS satellite and mark your position on the map. Now, I have to admit that the "put me on the map" business is not instantaneous in all areas. It seems to me that when I'm walking down a narrow street surrounded by multi-story buildings, my phone has difficulty communicating with the satellite. Sometimes I wander into a square and have better luck there.

You have a lot of good suggestions on how to find your way around Venice. Let me add one more: let yourself get lost!

One of the greatest pleasures you can get in Venice is to wander aimlessly. Some of the city's greatest delights aren't in the guidebooks; they are in the random streets and alleyways and squares that you will find yourself in when you don't know where you are.

Getting lost is fairly easy. Finding your way after that...not bad. Relax.

Unfortunately you are not likely to see birds other than pigeons in the City of Venice. Maybe a few songbirds in the trees of a campo or the Giardini, but I cannot recall any specifically.

And here is a tip: if you see an empty bench in a campo and wish to sit down, check the tree above for roosting pigeons first. We learned the hard way when my husband got pigeon-bombed. But they are so numerous that can happen anywhere. I got nailed while walking a very narrow Calle in San Polo, far from Piazza San Marco where they are most numerous.

If you have free time and wish to look for birds, you could ride the vaporetto to pastoral Sant'Erasmo, which is devoted to farming. Many of the vegetables found at the Rialto Market come from there. There is a wildlife preserve on the island, Seca de Bacan, which is used by migratory waterfowl. It is best to take bicycles ( or rent them there) to explore this island; we went on foot and did not see a lot of it although we spent several hours there.

And are you by chance familiar with the Aigas Field Centre in Scotland?

http://www.aigas.co.uk/programmes_by_theme.asp

They have bird-oriented weeks another programs as well. I would love to go for a botany week, but my husband does not wish to return to Scotland. ( not that he did not like it, but the weather was so nice for the whole week and he says it can't possibly be like that again!)

Navigating Venice with a compass should be interesting---most streets are short and twisty, while others go for relatively long distances with no intersecting streets. But if you can keep on track in one general direction you should get close to your desired destination. And you may see lots of interesting sights on the way.

If it is a liquid-filled compass, be sure and put it in your 3-1-1 bag. I was busted by TSA for failing to do that. My Silva has maybe 2 teaspoons of liquid, but that was enough to trigger a rebuke.

Its even more adventuress to wander Venice after dark. I used Google Maps in walking mode on my phone. Drop a pin on your destination and it will lay out the path for you. Follow the crumb trail.

Thanks again, everyone. Yes, I know all the guidebooks counsel getting lost, and believe it or not we are fine with that. I was just wondering how difficult it would be to get more or less directly to some definite location if that were desired, like getting to the Hotel from Sta. Lucia.

acraven, thanks for the reminder about CityMapsToGoPro; I had an old version of that app, and have just updated it. So far I can't find the "find me" button, but maybe that does not appear unless you are in the area covered by one of the maps on the app. I'm sure I'll figure it out by the time we leave.

Lola, we are not expecting much at all for birds in Venice. Thanks for the information about Sant'Erasmo; sounds intriguing, though I don't know if we will have time, as this is our first visit. Thanks also for the link to the Aigas Field Centre, which I have bookmarked. We love Scotland, and will be going back, hopefully for extended visits, once we finish our Making Up For Lost Time tours elsewhere in Europe. The compass tip is also useful, no way would I have thought to put it in the liquid bag. BTW we are starting this trip in Athens, where we had two Hoopoes in the ancient agora last May. [Edit: I know they are fairly common, but what an amazing-looking bird.]

Google maps (or my husband) really annoyed me in Rome this summer. While I had looked up and spotted some landmarks I knew (thanks to looking at google street view ahead of time) my husband kept following the "dot" on his iPhone screen, near Termini, no less. I was trying to confidently look like I knew where we were going while he wouldn't even look up or around. I kept waiting for the pickpockets to descend on him...

The drawback with smartphone GPS in Venice in particular is that you miss so much of the beauty around you if you're just staring down at your phone.

Joel, I don't remember what the button looks like--it's something geometric, I think. On my phone and tablet I believe it was on the right side of the screen near the bottom. Load your home-town (home state?) map and take a look when you have a chance.

I downloaded the app CityMaps2Go. With the app, you can download a map of Venice. You do not use any of your data when using the app. The app uses the wifi hot sports whether locked or unlocked to locate your location on the map. Every time you move, the dot on the map representing you moves. You can locate your hotel on the map in advance and it will identify it by a star. You will never get lost. On our RS tour, our guide took us from the hotel to St. Marks square and back to the hotel so we always knew how to get back to the hotel if we could find St. Marks Square. Unfortunately, for most of the tour members, we had high water at St Marks Square after our tour was finished for the day. Rather than risk getting lost and missing a group dinner, many walked thru the square to get back to the hotel as they knew no other way. With the app, I was able to avoid the water. A lot of hair dyers were doing extra duty drying out wet shoes.

Mona and Michael,
I totally agree that looking down at a phone to follow directions is a serious distraction, both for the viewer and for those around him/her. I can't tell you how many times I have been brought up short by someone peering down at their phone screen in the middle of a massive crowd of people. At least step to the side to allow others to walk around you!
I think Venice is truly unique when it comes to finding your way around. I navigated using a Streetwise map and the San Marco and Rialto signs but also by the position of the sun when I could see shadows. Never thought to use a compass, which I think is a great idea. Did I end up someplace where I did not expect to be? Yes, but that was OK. Use the electronic gizmos to find your hotel is you must, but then just wing it.

To get from the train station to your hotel with your luggage, ask your hotel. Then print out the directions and follow them exactly. Venetian hotels are very good at providing easy-to-follow, detailed instructions (out of necessity). And plan to arrive in daylight .

One of the problems I've encountered is that directions from apps use compass points - go north on xxx street. How the heck do I know which was is north!?!

If you do get lost in Venezia, that's the time to get to the nearest vaporetto stop, tap your multi-day pass, and cruise around until you get your bearings. Yes, shilling for the vaporetto pass here.

I do not walk around staring at my phone. I stop - look at the map and can remember the next 3 or 4 turns - street names or landmarks - then proceed. If one needs to stare at the map on the phone I would imagine they would have to stare at the paper map as well.

Venice is a great place to wander for sure but it is nice to be able to get from point A to point B directly when needed.

CityMaps2Go has saved us a few times. You can download before you go and my fav - pin places you want to see - whether a restaurant or sight, and I pin our accoms as well, so you can see if you are close to something, or make sure you don't miss something when in an area (I know, you can do that on a paper map as well - and I have).

My husband is pretty adept at reading a map (he likes to say I'd still be lost in Venice from 2008 - to which I reply - is that such a bad thing?!) and actually helped point some folks in the right direction, but even he can go the wrong direction at times - city map app at least shows you which way you are walking. We've stayed in the San Polo area for our 4 stays, so now it's a little like the back of my hand there, but some other areas...whew - forget it!