One Day in Venice

How to spend one day in Venice:

I love traveling in the summer. Especially when my travel location is in Italy. I absolutely adore the country, its fashion, its nature, and of course its amazing cuisine.

This summer I went on a little adventure through South Tyrol (in my humble opinion the most magnificent place to go hiking) and I also spent one day in Venice, purely because I rather spontaneously decided I wanted to pay a visit to the city.

If I am being completely honest, I imagined Venice to be quite different. You know how in amusement parks everything looks so perfect and almost cartoony. The houses are colorful and every detail has been lovingly thought through and designed. The streets are wide and clean, everyone is happy and it feels almost as if you have entered a parallel universe.

I kind of imagined Venice to be just like that.

Well, what can I say, it was not. 

For one, everything looked a lot older and lived in than I imagined. The colors of the houses had faded, you had to wrestle through the streets because they were so full of people and while doing so you completely lost your orientation because every street was super narrow, with loads of alleys and turns you could take. The city almost felt like one giant maze. And yet, I absolutely loved it. 

You might think: „What is she talking about?“ because the way I have previously described Venice doesn’t sound overly appealing, even to me. It is quite hard to explain if you have never been there but the city almost had a magical aura. I felt really quite comfortable although I usually don’t like crowded places, but that day I was fine being surrounded by so many people. More than fine actually.

The place felt alive. That is probably the best way of describing it. The houses were old but beautiful. The streets were narrow, yet inviting. There was something going on everywhere: so many great food options, intriguing little shops and amazing architecture. 

It was a truly wonderful experience! 

So here is how we spent one day in Venice…

Where we parked:

At first, we tried parking our car in the nearby city „Mestre“, because apparently, you could very easily take a bus from there to Venice, but unfortunately, that didn’t work out too great for us. The day we were visiting Venice there were public transport strikes going on everywhere for the entire day. Therefore we decided to use one of the car parks that was located on the Island. We paid 25€ for the whole day, which is a lot for just parking your car somewhere but seeing as you could very comfortably walk into the city and were not dependent on public transport to take you back to your vehicle, it felt worth it for us.

The best ice cream in the city?

One of our first stops after we took some time to appreciate the beauty of the city, was a Gelateria which we stumbled upon while walking through the streets. When in Italy you absolutely have to have Ice Cream, so naturally we had to get some. 

And it was so good!

The Gelateria was called Amorino and they served their gelato as beautiful roses. The ice cream was super creamy, flavorful and did a perfect job of cooling us down. (That day the temperature was above 30 °C) I would very much recommend Amorino when visiting Venice (although there are probably so many great Ice Cream places throughout the city).

The most beautiful bookstore in the world?

As a fellow book lover, one thing I really wanted to go to while visiting Venice was the „Liberia Acqua Alta“, a unique bookstore, selling antique books, second-hand books, pictures and souvenirs. In the middle of the store, a big boat filled with books invites you to browse its contents and everywhere you look there are books waiting to be bought and read. 

The store was packed with people when we visited, which didn’t inspire me to actually look for a book to buy myself (I do prefer a quiet and mostly empty bookstore) but as a tourist attraction, it was really quite something. 

I can wholeheartedly say that I have never in my life been in a bookstore that has been anything like „Liberia Acqua Alte“. I wouldn’t call it the most beautiful bookstore in the world but when you're standing between all of these old books, stacked up to the ceiling you can tell that the "Liberia" is something rather special. 

I am delighted that the bookstore is so popular with the people visiting Venice for hopefully that will allow the store to keep its doors open for many more years to come.

If you are a book lover definitely check the "Liberia" out, just be prepared that the bookstore might be rather crowded with fellow tourists.

Getting lost in the streets…

One thing I absolutely adored about Venice was, everywhere you went there was something beautiful to look at along the way. Of course, we had a few places we wanted to check out when in Venice but equally a lot of our time we spent wandering around, not worrying about where the next narrow passageway would lead us because it didn’t matter. Everywhere we went, we found beauty. 

If you decide to visit Venice, I very much encourage you to do just that. 

Take some time to wander around. Pocket your phone and explore the city. Walk alongside the countless canals, cross every bridge you come to, get lost, you might be surprised where you’ll end up…

So many dinner options…

You feel the evening approaching once you start seeing all the waiters standing outside their restaurants, patiently waiting for hungry customers to serve. 

To be honest, there are probably so many great places to go to for dinner that I wouldn’t know which one to pick. 

A lot of the restaurants have amazing fish options, seeing as Venice is surrounded by water, but unfortunately, I didn’t feel like having fish that day so instead we went to a restaurant called „Ristorante Centrale Pizzeria“. 

Honestly, the food was good but not amazing. I probably wouldn’t go there again but the atmosphere was great and we did enjoy ourselves very much.

Walking across the most famous bridge in Venice…

After Dinner, when the sun started to set, we went to the Rialto Bridge, a famous bridge with the most beautiful views over the Grand Canal. It is located in the very heart of Venice and as with everything in Venice, it’s quite a busy place. Of course, I had us take really touristy pictures, which was a challenge in itself, being surrounded by so many people but I think we did it in the end.

The view over the water and the surrounding buildings was probably the most stunning thing I had seen on our Mini Venice trip. While the sun slowly set, the warm, fading light turned the whole city into a truly magnificent place. I could have stayed in that spot for ages, calmly ganzing over the canal but I felt like other people were waiting for their turn to experience the beauty of the Rialto Bridge so reluctantly we left.

We didn’t go far though. After descending the bridge we went to a small supermarket, got a couple of apples and grissini and sat down by the Grand Canal, watching the gondolas go by, while the sun slowly set. 

It was the most perfect end to our day in Venice.

We went home in the dark, happy that we didn’t have to cram into a tight and overfilled bus to get to our car. (Definitely worth the 25€)

Truly the day couldn’t have been more wonderful!