Tourists’ feedbacks in Venice

Last Saturday the whole Italian Buddy team went to Venice. We wanted to collect some pictures we needed for the guide. We thought: while we are here, why don’t we speak with some tourists and gather their feedbacks on Venice?

We made some flyers and we set up in St. Marco square, asking to toursts to share with us their experiences. Here’s a summary of what they told us:

1. It’s difficult to find a hostel in Venice
2. Boat tickets are very expensive
3. It’s difficult to find a toilet

We are still trying to get more feedbacks to make our guide as complete as possible but here we go with some quick hints in response to those three points:

1. Did you know that it’s much easier to find a hostel or cheap hotel in Mestre (mainland) rather than in Venice? Of course, the atmosphere is not even comparable to sleeping in Venice, but hey, if you’re with some friends and don’t want to spend too much money on accommodation, here’s your solution! On average an hotel in Mestre will cost you half the price you would spend in Venice. Not bad, huh? (we’ll talk about this more in other posts).
2. Yeah, you can’t do much about this. There are partial solutions, like daily or weekly tickets, but if you’re not in a hurry and you’re not carrying your luggage, why don’t you relax and take a walk? You will probably get lost, but what better place to get lost than Venice?
3. There are public toilets, but not too many (we will to make a map on our guide of all the public restrooms). The solution to this problem is: go to a bar. Here’s the trick: all the bars in Venice will ask you to buy something before they let you use the restroom, but by law they shouldn’t be allowed to do that. A bar is a public service, and as such it should provide free access to a toilet. Anyway, you can figure out that if they did that, with all the tourists that visit Venice every day, they would probably have to clean the toilet all day and forget about the rest. So let’s just use some courtesy: order a coffee and drink it at the counter (this is very important: DO NOT SIT DOWN or the price will be much higher). You’ll end up paying 1 to 1.20 euros for the coffee, the bar owner will be happy and you won’t feel guilty.

Do YOU have feedbacks about your experience in Venice? Did you think anything was unclear, tricky or too difficult? Did anybody rip you off or shortchange you?

Write us here, on our email  or on Facebook ! We NEED your opinion!