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When I was going to Venice for the first time one of my co-workers gave me one little advice "when you will go out of train station, go right not left" and it w

When I was going to Venice for the first time one of my co-workers gave me one little advice "when you will go out of train station, go right not left" and it was a fantastic advice. Route to the left is main route to Piazza San Marco, it's almost always overcrowded, with a lot of shady sellers, lots of shops selling cheap, china made souvenirs etc. pretty much all the things that you most likely want to avoid. On top of that advice I am also adding my own: "get lost in Venice", just go in the other direction and I will guarantee you that in 5 minutes you will end up alone in a beautiful place with some small restaurant, seemingly waiting just for you. Venice is still beautiful and worth visiting, just don't spent so much time on visiting places from the guides, get lost and you will find gems that you wouldn't find otherwise.

lqet 7y ago
Absolutely, and if you just wander around without a map, you will get lost very quickly. But you will not regret it. My tips for anyone who wants to visit Venice: please don't support the cruise ships destroying this beautiful city, just use the train. Come for at least 5 days. Try to slowly walk through every quarter of the city (you will need 5-10 days for that). Buy a week ticket for the vaporettos and ride the vaporetto up and down canal grande in the evening. Don't dress like a stereotypical tourist. Please behave. If you are American or Chinese, actively try to lower your voice. Leave your smartphone and/or your camera at your apartment / hotel, everything you will be photographing has been photographed, painted or drawn at least a million times already. And, most importantly: don't ride the gondolas, you will get screwed financially.
- scarejunba 7y ago
  I love Venice and I love taking photos of things. It isn't about the thing. It's about capturing the feeling. One photo I have brings to mind a rainy day where I got lost there, soaked through my jacket, and my umbrella inverted. I can still remember the wind whipping through my hair before the storm, and the feeling of pleasant dryness when I got home. And all I need for that is a half-assed non-horizontal-horizon photo.
- stronglikedan 7y ago
  > Don't dress like a tourist. One of these things is not like the others! I think better advice to the advisor would be to not judge people for how they are dressed.
  - EpicEng 7y ago
    Good luck convincing a town of people to not recognize a tourist by their clothing. What does that even mean anyway?
    - stronglikedan 7y ago
      It's not about being recognized as a tourist. It's about judging people by their actions, instead of how they look. All the other things mentioned are actions that could be considered rude or abrasive. Someone should not have to dress like you for you to treat them well, for that is the fault of the prejudiced.
      - 64738 7y ago
        While ultimately true, the problem is that you can't control how other people think or judge, but you can control what you wear.
      - pessimizer 7y ago
        Might be more pragmatic to not dress like a tourist rather than to convert the entire population to your philosophy about not ever judging by appearance. I'll also add that the reason that you wouldn't want to dress like a tourist is to mislead locals about what you actually are, which is a tourist. Judging you substantively would mean judging you as one of the tourists that makes them want to leave the town they grew up in.
  - lqet 7y ago
    > I think better advice to the advisor would be to not judge people for how they are dressed. This would be strange advice, because you clearly would judge someone going to a high-end restaurant in a bathing suit, to a funeral in nothing but underpants or to a wedding wearing a SS uniform. These are ridiculous examples, of course, but they appear so ridiculous because one of the fabrics of any society is that on certain occasions, you should try to tune down your individuality as best as possible and try to blend in with others. In my opinion, visiting a foreign country as a guest is one of these occasions.
- throw0101a 7y ago
  > Don't dress like a tourist. What does this mean? How do tourists dress? How would it differ from a non-tourist?
  - lqet 7y ago
    I changed that to "stereotypical" tourist above, but I agree that this is still a bit harsh. What I meant was that: if you are visiting a town in a foreign country, it would at least be polite to research beforehand how locals dress and what is considered rude, inappropriate or simply tasteless.
    - futureastronaut 7y ago
      Not what I was expecting at all, I wish people dressed that well on vacation. I thought you were going to link to someting more like https://goo.gl/maps/AnzFYfXAuCDt2rDD8 https://goo.gl/maps/AnzFYfXAuCDt2rDD8 That said, all of these measures you describe are a bit much. There are a million ways to tell that somebody's a tourist, are you going to pretend you're there to raise VC? Edit: Parent's editing their comments a lot so mine makes no sense now, but they linked to https://img.budgettravel.com/_facebookShare/tourists-in-spain-with-selfie-stick-5172016-123331_original.jpg?mtime=20160517073345 https://img.budgettravel.com/_facebookShare/tourists-in-spai... as an example of tourist attire.
      - deanCommie 7y ago
        So...comfortable and practical? People don't want to do laundry on their vacation. And unless you're rich and have porters lugging around massive luggage with carefully packed fashionable clothes, people are also space-constrained So, they optimize for comfortable, quick-dry, wrinkle-free clothes so they can maximize exploration and energy. That's......what you have to do when you are spending your limited vacation time to see the world. Part of this is definitely a snobby european mindset. Europeans get 5-6 weeks of vacation a year, and burn 4 of those on August so they are used to LOONG consecutive getaways, and structure their lives accordingly. The rest of the world (And I don't mean America, I mean the entire rest of the non-European world) doesn't have that luxury.
- rayiner 7y ago
  I find the tourist snobbery amusing. If you’re a tourist, what are you going to dress like apart from like a tourist? As to your smart phone, are you saying that the locals don’t have their nose buried in a smart phone, like everyone else? Are the different quarters of Venice sufficiently different from each other (and from other european cities) to be worth visiting? As to gondolas—if you don’t ride one, what’s the point of going to Venice? You can get great Italian food and ride a ferry through filthy water in New York—if you’re taking the trouble to go to Venice, you’re there for the gondolas.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - alteria 7y ago
    I used to think like lqet, and my travel habits reflected that, traveling to obscure places (at least for an American) to "get away from the crowds." But the more I thought about it, the less comfortable I was with that line of thinking. What IS wrong with taking a picture that isn't 100% original? Is taking a picture of Piazza San Marco just as bad as a landscape photographer getting that "perfect shot" of Antelope Canyon? or Mesa Arch? [1][2] What if you are an American with very limited vacation time each year? Or you just want an "easy" vacation? Why is one style of travel better than the other? Does a place having a ton of visitors make it worse to visit? Or is there still value to going? I'm just rambling at this point, but I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts since I'm not sure what to feel. [1] https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/0f/1b/ec/c6/crowded-conditions-in.jpg https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/0f/1b/ec/c6/... [2] https://www.johntrotto.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/IMG_2741_600px_w.jpg https://www.johntrotto.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/IMG_27...
    - tasssko 7y ago
      Agree and scientifically we remember by remembering. A photo on my phone is enough to remember the feeling of being there. Even if it was over crowded and i ended up paying 14 euro for a espresso.
      - 7y ago
- davidw 7y ago
  There is actually a public gondola that you can take across the canal grande for just a few euros, which is a cool way to at least say you've been in one without getting screwed.
- gjs278 7y ago
  >lower your voice deal with it noodle boy, people visiting is the only thing keeping river town afloat
- mcv 7y ago
  > If you are American or Chinese, actively try to lower your voice. Only American and Chinese? If you're Dutch, you can still talk as loudly as you want to?
  - lqet 7y ago
    I am living in a fairly touristic European town and have visited plenty of the main tourist towns across Europe over the last decade. Without any intention to be judgmental, I can safely say that in general, Americans and middle-aged Chinese tourist don't keep their voice down intuitively. This is not their fault, of course. For example, both inner cities and living quarters are much more spacious in the US than in Europe, simply because the population density is much higher (117 per km² in the EU compared to 34 per km² in the US). In a typical European living quarter, if you are too loud on your porch or balcony, you are disturbing dozens of people or waking up babies. In the US, the next house may be so far away the neighbors won't even hear you. Add to this that around 77% of people in the US live in houses [0], compared to ~42% of Europeans who live in flats [1] (in countries like Switzerland or Germany, more than 60% of the population lives in flats, in Italy it's still over 50% [2]). In a flat, if you are too loud or if you don't walk quietly (especially in pre-WWII buildings), you are disturbing your neighbors. For that reason, in Europe (and I am sure in other parts of the world with similar population densities) children are reminded from an extremely early age that they have to keep their voice down and walk quietly when in a flat. Again, I am not saying this applies to every American or Chinese, and of course there are German / British / French / Italian / Indian / Arabic / [...] tourists who do this. [0] https://www.quora.com/What-percentage-of-the-American-population-lives-apartments-and-what-percent-in-houses https://www.quora.com/What-percentage-of-the-American-popula... [1] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Housing_statistics#Type_of_dwelling https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_in_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_in_Europe
    - mcv 7y ago
      I certainly try to teach my kids to keep their voice down, but I'm having little success so far. But from what I understand, Dutch tourists also have a reputation for being loud and/or rude. Maybe more rude than loud, but I tend to see them as going together.
selimthegrim 7y ago
Venice late at night can be a pretty cool experience too. I had the place almost entirely to myself (this was December)
pfundstein 7y ago
I'll summarise your advice as "Get off the beaten track and explore." This is good advice and it applies to any touristy destination.
thomasfl 7y ago
If you do get lost in Venice, you will discover that Google maps often can't tell you exactly where you are because the streets are too narrow and the walls too thick. Funny enough Apple maps on my iPhone does a better job navigating in Venice. It's easy to get lost in Venice when walking through the dark alleys that you find everywhere.

lqet 7y ago

Absolutely, and if you just wander around without a map, you will get lost very quickly. But you will not regret it. My tips for anyone who wants to visit Venice: please don't support the cruise ships destroying this beautiful city, just use the train. Come for at least 5 days. Try to slowly walk through every quarter of the city (you will need 5-10 days for that). Buy a week ticket for the vaporettos and ride the vaporetto up and down canal grande in the evening. Don't dress like a stereotypical tourist. Please behave. If you are American or Chinese, actively try to lower your voice. Leave your smartphone and/or your camera at your apartment / hotel, everything you will be photographing has been photographed, painted or drawn at least a million times already. And, most importantly: don't ride the gondolas, you will get screwed financially.

scarejunba 7y ago
I love Venice and I love taking photos of things. It isn't about the thing. It's about capturing the feeling. One photo I have brings to mind a rainy day where I got lost there, soaked through my jacket, and my umbrella inverted. I can still remember the wind whipping through my hair before the storm, and the feeling of pleasant dryness when I got home. And all I need for that is a half-assed non-horizontal-horizon photo.
stronglikedan 7y ago
> Don't dress like a tourist. One of these things is not like the others! I think better advice to the advisor would be to not judge people for how they are dressed.
- EpicEng 7y ago
  Good luck convincing a town of people to not recognize a tourist by their clothing. What does that even mean anyway?
  - stronglikedan 7y ago
    It's not about being recognized as a tourist. It's about judging people by their actions, instead of how they look. All the other things mentioned are actions that could be considered rude or abrasive. Someone should not have to dress like you for you to treat them well, for that is the fault of the prejudiced.
    - 64738 7y ago
      While ultimately true, the problem is that you can't control how other people think or judge, but you can control what you wear.
    - pessimizer 7y ago
      Might be more pragmatic to not dress like a tourist rather than to convert the entire population to your philosophy about not ever judging by appearance. I'll also add that the reason that you wouldn't want to dress like a tourist is to mislead locals about what you actually are, which is a tourist. Judging you substantively would mean judging you as one of the tourists that makes them want to leave the town they grew up in.
- lqet 7y ago
  > I think better advice to the advisor would be to not judge people for how they are dressed. This would be strange advice, because you clearly would judge someone going to a high-end restaurant in a bathing suit, to a funeral in nothing but underpants or to a wedding wearing a SS uniform. These are ridiculous examples, of course, but they appear so ridiculous because one of the fabrics of any society is that on certain occasions, you should try to tune down your individuality as best as possible and try to blend in with others. In my opinion, visiting a foreign country as a guest is one of these occasions.
throw0101a 7y ago
> Don't dress like a tourist. What does this mean? How do tourists dress? How would it differ from a non-tourist?
- lqet 7y ago
  I changed that to "stereotypical" tourist above, but I agree that this is still a bit harsh. What I meant was that: if you are visiting a town in a foreign country, it would at least be polite to research beforehand how locals dress and what is considered rude, inappropriate or simply tasteless.
  - futureastronaut 7y ago
    Not what I was expecting at all, I wish people dressed that well on vacation. I thought you were going to link to someting more like https://goo.gl/maps/AnzFYfXAuCDt2rDD8 https://goo.gl/maps/AnzFYfXAuCDt2rDD8 That said, all of these measures you describe are a bit much. There are a million ways to tell that somebody's a tourist, are you going to pretend you're there to raise VC? Edit: Parent's editing their comments a lot so mine makes no sense now, but they linked to https://img.budgettravel.com/_facebookShare/tourists-in-spain-with-selfie-stick-5172016-123331_original.jpg?mtime=20160517073345 https://img.budgettravel.com/_facebookShare/tourists-in-spai... as an example of tourist attire.
    - deanCommie 7y ago
      So...comfortable and practical? People don't want to do laundry on their vacation. And unless you're rich and have porters lugging around massive luggage with carefully packed fashionable clothes, people are also space-constrained So, they optimize for comfortable, quick-dry, wrinkle-free clothes so they can maximize exploration and energy. That's......what you have to do when you are spending your limited vacation time to see the world. Part of this is definitely a snobby european mindset. Europeans get 5-6 weeks of vacation a year, and burn 4 of those on August so they are used to LOONG consecutive getaways, and structure their lives accordingly. The rest of the world (And I don't mean America, I mean the entire rest of the non-European world) doesn't have that luxury.
rayiner 7y ago
I find the tourist snobbery amusing. If you’re a tourist, what are you going to dress like apart from like a tourist? As to your smart phone, are you saying that the locals don’t have their nose buried in a smart phone, like everyone else? Are the different quarters of Venice sufficiently different from each other (and from other european cities) to be worth visiting? As to gondolas—if you don’t ride one, what’s the point of going to Venice? You can get great Italian food and ride a ferry through filthy water in New York—if you’re taking the trouble to go to Venice, you’re there for the gondolas.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- alteria 7y ago
  I used to think like lqet, and my travel habits reflected that, traveling to obscure places (at least for an American) to "get away from the crowds." But the more I thought about it, the less comfortable I was with that line of thinking. What IS wrong with taking a picture that isn't 100% original? Is taking a picture of Piazza San Marco just as bad as a landscape photographer getting that "perfect shot" of Antelope Canyon? or Mesa Arch? [1][2] What if you are an American with very limited vacation time each year? Or you just want an "easy" vacation? Why is one style of travel better than the other? Does a place having a ton of visitors make it worse to visit? Or is there still value to going? I'm just rambling at this point, but I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts since I'm not sure what to feel. [1] https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/0f/1b/ec/c6/crowded-conditions-in.jpg https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/0f/1b/ec/c6/... [2] https://www.johntrotto.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/IMG_2741_600px_w.jpg https://www.johntrotto.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/IMG_27...
  - tasssko 7y ago
    Agree and scientifically we remember by remembering. A photo on my phone is enough to remember the feeling of being there. Even if it was over crowded and i ended up paying 14 euro for a espresso.
    - 7y ago
davidw 7y ago
There is actually a public gondola that you can take across the canal grande for just a few euros, which is a cool way to at least say you've been in one without getting screwed.
gjs278 7y ago
>lower your voice deal with it noodle boy, people visiting is the only thing keeping river town afloat
mcv 7y ago
> If you are American or Chinese, actively try to lower your voice. Only American and Chinese? If you're Dutch, you can still talk as loudly as you want to?
- lqet 7y ago
  I am living in a fairly touristic European town and have visited plenty of the main tourist towns across Europe over the last decade. Without any intention to be judgmental, I can safely say that in general, Americans and middle-aged Chinese tourist don't keep their voice down intuitively. This is not their fault, of course. For example, both inner cities and living quarters are much more spacious in the US than in Europe, simply because the population density is much higher (117 per km² in the EU compared to 34 per km² in the US). In a typical European living quarter, if you are too loud on your porch or balcony, you are disturbing dozens of people or waking up babies. In the US, the next house may be so far away the neighbors won't even hear you. Add to this that around 77% of people in the US live in houses [0], compared to ~42% of Europeans who live in flats [1] (in countries like Switzerland or Germany, more than 60% of the population lives in flats, in Italy it's still over 50% [2]). In a flat, if you are too loud or if you don't walk quietly (especially in pre-WWII buildings), you are disturbing your neighbors. For that reason, in Europe (and I am sure in other parts of the world with similar population densities) children are reminded from an extremely early age that they have to keep their voice down and walk quietly when in a flat. Again, I am not saying this applies to every American or Chinese, and of course there are German / British / French / Italian / Indian / Arabic / [...] tourists who do this. [0] https://www.quora.com/What-percentage-of-the-American-population-lives-apartments-and-what-percent-in-houses https://www.quora.com/What-percentage-of-the-American-popula... [1] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Housing_statistics#Type_of_dwelling https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_in_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_in_Europe
  - mcv 7y ago
    I certainly try to teach my kids to keep their voice down, but I'm having little success so far. But from what I understand, Dutch tourists also have a reputation for being loud and/or rude. Maybe more rude than loud, but I tend to see them as going together.

selimthegrim 7y ago

Venice late at night can be a pretty cool experience too. I had the place almost entirely to myself (this was December)

pfundstein 7y ago

I'll summarise your advice as "Get off the beaten track and explore." This is good advice and it applies to any touristy destination.

thomasfl 7y ago

If you do get lost in Venice, you will discover that Google maps often can't tell you exactly where you are because the streets are too narrow and the walls too thick. Funny enough Apple maps on my iPhone does a better job navigating in Venice. It's easy to get lost in Venice when walking through the dark alleys that you find everywhere.