Venice, Italy: Travel Tips and a Day Trip to Burano

My Venice travel tips are simple: ride the vaporetto, get to St. Mark's Square early, eat the pasta, and take the boat to Burano. The first thing that surprised me in Venice was not the canals. It was the public transportation.

The plan at a glance

• Get around: on foot and by vaporetto, the water bus
• Beat the crowds: St. Mark's Square at 8 in the morning
• Day trip: half a day on Burano, the island of painted houses

Getting around Venice by vaporetto

In Venice the bus is a boat. The vaporetto runs along the Grand Canal and out to the islands, and Line 1, which runs the whole length of the Grand Canal, is the cheapest canal tour in town. If you plan to ride several times a day, a travel card costs less than single tickets. Imagine if your daily commute looked like this.

St. Mark's Square: go at 8 AM

The difference between 8 and 10 in the morning in Venice is huge. At 8, St. Mark's Square is almost empty. By 10, the waterfront by the Doge's Palace is shoulder to shoulder. Do the big sights first thing and save the afternoon for quieter neighborhoods.

A day trip to Burano

Everyone talks about Venice, and no one told me about the island next to it. Just a short boat ride away, Burano is a tiny island of brightly painted houses, small canals and colorful streets that feel almost too perfect to be real. It was one of my favorite stops in Italy. Vaporetto Line 12 from Fondamente Nove takes about 40 minutes.

What to eat in Venice

It's the pasta. It was always the pasta. Venice ruined every carbonara back home for me. Try the seafood pastas too, and cicchetti, the small plates served at Venetian wine bars called bàcari.

Gondolas and quiet canals

A gondola ride is the classic splurge. Even if you skip it, the small canals away from the Grand Canal are where Venice goes quiet, and where my camera roll filled up with gondolas.

Keep on roaming,

Polina