How to survive in Venice: a handy guide for ignorant foreigners

There are some basic rules to visiting that place. I will put them in a row one by one to avoid the vague musings that might come out otherwise (see below what happened last time I tried to write about Venice).

1. Drop your ideals in a bin. This is not a dream city. It is a city. Think what you want of it, but you can be sure that the houses are not really made of gold, nobody really uses the gondolas to get around and the gondolieri will never, and I mean never sing O Sole Mio to you while you glide romantically down the canal at sunset.

2. Want to eat? Get as far away from St Mark's square as you can. West, if possible. There are some reasonable bars off the tourist centre, and, if you're lucky, you might find a few of the well-hidden supermarkets too. In any case avoid the restaurants where slick English-speaking young men offer you a fixed price deal at the front door.

Also, there is a strict rhythm and unimaginable amounts of unwritten rules to eating in Italy. The rhythm is easy enough:

- morning - 10.30/11.00: breakfast: cappuccino and a croissant or cookies usually. In any case NOT a ham sandwich or scrambled eggs. This doesn't mean you're not allowed to munch on a sausage in your hotel room... if you really want to.
- 11.00 - 12.30/13.00: aperitifs: white wine, Prosecco or Spritz. You can skip that one, but you'll definitely see groups of senior gentlemen at it in small around-the-corner bars.
- 13.00 - 14.30: LUNCH. This is important, because after 3 o'clock you'll have trouble finding a local-oriented restaurant that will serve you more than a tiny sandwich. Also, lunch is the most important meal of the day for several reasons. Mostly, you'll note, because of your Italian-style one-biscuit breakfast you'll be starving by that time. A full lunch is 3 courses: primo (pasta, soup or rice), secondo (meat or fish) and dessert or fruit, though precious few people eat a full lunch out. Get a first dish, they cost less.
- 14.00/14.30 - 15.30: digesting. Venetians return to work. (South Italy prepares to eat.) There is no siesta as such in the North. In small towns where people return home to eat (and depending on the nature of their work) the lunch break can stretch from midday to 3 pm, in which case the working day finishes around 7 in the evening.
- 16.00: you can think about a little merendina, a snack. Still no restaurants serving food.
- 18.30 - 20.00: aperitifs*. This time it's serious. You should get one. Or two.
- 19.30 - 21.30: dinner. This is when people really go out to eat. Also, single-course meals such as pizza or bruschette are only acceptable for dinner, so take your chance. Eating dinner out will invariably cost you a coperto, too (see below).
- 23.00 or before bed: herb tea or hot milk.

That much about the rhythm... the rules are a little more complex, but just don't order cappuccino after midday, don't put parmesan on seafood and you'll be fine.

3. Want to drink? Same thing: get away from San Marco. You might be tempted by Caffé Florian, the very first cafeteria to open in Europe (1720), or another of the fancy places right at the square, but enter at your own risk. The coffee will cost you 5, the milk in it 2, the chair 3 and the music 5 euros or so. In a normal bar the price of an espresso is fixed to 0.85 - 1 euro. Wine should also be ordered with care, though the presence and concentration of tourists at any given place is usually an indicator of the fairness of the prices. By the way, wine is always connected to food in Italy, so drinking as the North does - just for the fun of pouring it down - is incomprehensible; getting drunk during dinner is embarrassing. (This doesn't mean the Italians don't have their fun though.)

4. Sitting down. Remember that the chairs will cost you. There is such a thing as coperto in the Italian restaurants that literally means "covered" and is indeed a quite obscure addition to any restaurant bill. Technically it is simply service charge. It solves a lot of problems, such as ethical (for you: deciding whether and how much to tip) and financial (um... for the restaurant owner). Coperto usually ranges from 1.50 to 2 euros, but in Venice it has been developed to an art form (see previous rule). Thus, when the barman smiles at you nicely and asks you to sit down, be wary and try to get a look at the menu first: the coperto will be written in tiny letters at the bottom of the second page. Some restaurants are honest enough and write down their "bar" and "table" prices outside - they will differ considerably. In the more tranquil areas of Venice the coperto will probably not be an issue and is applied only when you eat and are served at the table (in other words, in a situation where you might consider tipping in other countries). You shouldn't, in theory, be asked to pay for service if you have simply rested your left buttock on a chair for five minutes while eating a sandwich or drinking an aperitif.

5. Forget the gondolas. The guys who row people around in them are already so rich they couldn't care less if you get your romantic ride on the Gran Canale or not. One ride costs 80 euros and, accordingly, 8 normal-weight people are able to squeeze inside. If you have your mind set on crossing the Gran Canale though (best views in town!), you can also get a traghetto (ferry) for 6 euros. The same price applies for most routes, including the surrounding islands.**

6. And finally: get lost. Prepare to walk considerable distances. It's the only way of discovering Venice, though in most cases getting lost is not completely voluntary. If you prefer knowing where you're going or steering steadily towards the train station to get away from the place, just follow the yellow signs above your head on strategic street corners. 'Ferrovia' stands for the train station. 'Rialto' stands for the Rialto bridge.


Good luck.


* It seems that aperitifs are such a very Veneto thing that going south it exists less and less. In Florence an aperitif means a snack buffet that costs accordingly.
** the 6-euro traghetto ticket costs 1 euro for Venetians and anyone resident in the region. Understandable, though a little harsh, just like everything that the tourists are expected to pay in Venice. Now they opened a locals-only line (nr 3). If you're turned back, it's because the Venetians are happy to separate themselves from chattering tourists groups. Well, we knew that already.