Visiting Venice for the first time

Venice is considered to be one of the most beautiful and visited cities in the North part of Italy. It is no surprise that people want to come to Venice, as it is full of incredible vistas and landmarks. Venice is a one of kind city, as it consists of more than a hundred islands, which are connected with more than four hundred bridges. This location is mostly known as the Blue Lagoon of Venice and it is named like that, because of the turquoise waters of the canals.

In addition to that, Venice was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List for having one of the finest architectural masterpieces and artwork, along with the Burano glass. The city is also known as the birthplace of Antonio Vivaldi, who was one of the most talented musicians during the Renaissance period.

The city of Venice was inhabited since the ancient Roman times and its name means “lovely” as per one of the oldest European languages. However, with time, Venice became a much stronger and more developed city after the tenth century. The Middle Ages were very important for Venice, as it became a sole republic with its own government and had its own laws. The Republic of Venice lasted for centuries until the eighteenth century when it was added to the Austrian Empire.

However, during the Middle Ages, the Republic of Venice was one of the most powerful cities in the Mediterranean Sea. It was famous for its maritime commerce and some historians say, the sailors of Venice reached the distant lands of India in the search of treasures. However, the Republic of Venice had a strong financial system and a massive production of ships, which were one of the best ships at the time. This led the Republic of Venice to conquer lots of walled cities in the Mediterranean like Dubrovnik and Kotor and to assert control over them. This made the Republic of Venice even more powerful and wealthy, as these walled cities were also known for producing one of the most skilled sailors and maritime traders.

While I was exploring the North of Italy with my friend, we decided to go from Verona to Venice, which was quite close. Thus, we went to the train station in Verona and bought tickets, which cost around thirteen euros per person. However, before catching the train we had to validate the tickets using the validators around the station.

The train ride to Venice from Verona was around two hours, which was quite fast. It was also a nice train ride, as we got the chance to sit on the second floor of the train and overlook the beautiful green field in the North of Italy.

Finally, we arrived in Venice’s station Santa Lucia, which was located exactly at the Grand Canal in Venice. From there we started our journey in this city full of canals and colourful streets that were more like labyrinths.

Things to do and visit in Venice

Venice is not a big city, but its canals and narrow streets make it a quite difficult city for exploration. That is why it is best to prepare before going there, as it is very easy to get lost and the navigation is also useless.

However, there are lots of landmarks to be visited in Venice, depending on how much time you have at your disposal to spend in this amazing city. Since me and my friend went there for a day, we visited the most famous landmarks in the city and I will share them with you below, along with some useful tips.

The San Simeone Piccolo Church in Venice

Our first stop was the Grand Canal, which was full of boats roaming around the canal and Italians offering us Gondola rides, which were quite expensive. However, we crossed on the other side of the Grand Canal, using the Scalzi Bridge and went to the San Simeone Piccolo Church. This church was easily distinguished by the rest, because of its light green dome, which could be seen from afar. In front of the church’s entrance, there are a couple of columns that resembled those of a Roman temple.

However, the church was built in entirely Neoclassical architectural style around the eighteenth century and is one of the last churches to be built in Venice. Inside the church was full of the iconostasis, crosses and an altar in the middle of the church. It was a bright white church on the inside and did not look like the old churches that had frescoes everywhere. It truly was quite new and modern, compared to the rest.

Then, we went on to a couple of more bridges in Venice like the Constitution Bridge, which was the fourth bridge to be installed over the Grand Canal. The Constitution Bridge was added in 2007 and was a very modern bridge compared to the rest of the bridges in Venice. The bridge is made out of steel and had white marble stairs accompanied by glass fencing. The Constitution Bridge was one of the closest bridges to the train station, which was taking you into the water city quite quickly.

Our first Gondola Ride in Venice

Eventually, we started walking inside of the city, which was unlike anything else I have ever seen. While walking there were lots of gondoliers shouting at us to go to them and get a gondola ride, thus we decided to ask for a price. The first time we asked they wanted to charge us eighty euros, thus we declined the offer. Going a bit further we asked another gondolier and after a bit of negotiating the price with him, he agreed to take us for a ride for sixty euros, which was quite a deal.

Thus, we went inside the gondola, which we had to make quite carefully, as there is a chance you can fall into the water. However, our gondolier was nice enough and helped us get inside the gondola. Thus, our gondola ride started at Rio Novo, which was a smaller canal in Venice. As soon as we started sailing, he started singing Italian songs and it was a quite nice experience.

While sailing around our gondolier showed us some old buildings like the old hospital and the prison in Venice, which were not used anymore. He also explained to us that Venice was flooded almost every year, because the sea level was rising and that this was damaging the foundations of the buildings.

The gondola ride was very nice and peaceful and we were quite lucky, as our gondolier was quite skilful, because he managed to avoid a couple of crashes with other gondolas. I realized that Venice was one of the most colourful cities I have ever visited. Its buildings and streets were full of various colours and all types of strange buildings, which only added to the beauty of the city.

Eventually, we reached the Grand Canal again and he showed us Palazzo Balbi, which was the seat of the President of the region of Veneto. Honestly, I could not pay a lot of attention to that I was too scared of all the gondolas and boats sailing close to us in the Grand Canal. Trust me, the Grand Canal is a very busy canal full of speeding boats. Then, he showed us the Palazzo Pisani Moretta, which belonged to a rich family during the Middle Ages. It was a very beautiful Gothic palace painted in a light orange colour. It was incredible to look at it, as it seemed that it emerged from the water.

However, he showed us two other palaces – the Palazzo Grassi, which was a quite modern palace and Palazzo Malipiero, which was an old palace dating back to the tenth century. After that long trip on the canals of Venice, our gondolier left us at Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute.

The Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute was a huge church located almost at the end of Venice. It was built around the seventeenth century in entirely Baroque architectural style. However, we were not able to enter into the church, as it was closed, thus we stayed outside of it overlooking the sea and the other islands of the city in the distance.

After a while, we went on to cross another interesting bridge on the Grand Canal - the Ponte dell’Accademia. However, unlike the Constitution bridge, Ponte dell’Accademia was a bridge made out of wood and was installed in the middle of the nineteenth century. This bridge led us directly to the island where we could find the Saint Mark’s square.

Saint Mark’s Square in Venice

After walking for around half an hour and stopping by the shops to buy some gifts with Burano glass we arrived at Saint Mark’s Square. This was the place that most of the Venetian mask festivals were taking place every year in February. Saint Mark’s Square was the main square of Venice and one of the most visited touristic places. Even though it was late in the afternoon there were lots of tourists that were exploring the square, which was surrounded by a couple of museums.

At the Saint Mark’s Square was also located the Saint Mark’s Basilica, which was built around the eleventh century in Byzantine architectural style. Next to the basilica is its bell tower, which is almost a hundred meters high and is one of the most recognized landmarks in the city.

We stayed at the square for a while enjoying the setting sun over Venice and headed back to the Santa Lucia train station. Since we had time until the last train, we decided to sit in a restaurant near the canal and have dinner. Thus, we sat at Al Bacco Felice restaurant and ate the most delicious lasagna of my life!

However, time was passing by and while enjoying our dinner we saw the clock, which was showing it was close to ten in the evening. Thus, we paid our bill quickly and headed to the train station where we got to know that we have missed the last train back to Verona. At first, we could not believe it, but even after checking a couple of times, the earliest train was at six o’clock.

Thus, we had to decide what to do for the next eight hours, as we were very tired and wanted to just rest in our bed in Verona. However, we went back to the Grand Canal and sat there on the front and started talking about everything. At some point, we decided to go to a bar and found one that was open until 2 a. m. Thus, we stayed there for a couple of hours and went for a walk in Venice during the night, which I would say was quite scary. Eventually, we went back to the Grand Canal and met some girls that were students and were celebrating the graduation of their friend, so they invited us to go with them at a party and since we had nothing better to do we went with them and the rest is history…

Well, miraculously, we managed to catch the train at 7 a. m. in the morning after the party, so we went back to our house in Verona to sleep. Honestly, this was a day I would always remember and cherish.

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