Venice the city of Sighs!

Advantages: Absolutely breath taking views around every corner.
Disadvantages: Very expensive packed during the day with day trippers.

...Venice. I was under strict instructions to make sure I was off duty for my birthday but unfortunately I was unable to arrange to have the time off until the following week for what was supposed to be a special birthday surprise. Unfortunately due to a couple of circumstances beyond our control I actually found out that my birthday treat was to be a trip to Venice. I couldn?t believe it as I have always wanted to go there but never imagined it would happen this way. I would have probably gone into heart failure had I found out about it at the airport so it was probably for the best I found out about it anyway. Unable to cancel the trip we decided to go ahead with the visit and boy was I surprised and excited. The night before the trip to Venice we had gone to London to see a show and to have dinner and due to an oversight...

garymarsh86 24.09.2009 (26.10.2009) · Read review
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Review of Venice (Italy)

Venus in Venice.

Advantages: Lively, interesting and different.
Disadvantages: A bit expensive

...There is so much written about Venice so I thought I would write about the practical things which I thought about or affected me rather than an in depth history of any place or building I visited. If you are interested in visiting Venice I am sure you will have your favourite attractions. The guide books say there are about 400 bridges; they are not as tiring on the legs as you might imagine. There was a lack of children walking and in pushchairs and I had to resist the urge to help the workmen dragging, single handed, large boxes and allsorts on barrows up and down the stairs; that is part of their everyday life. In England it would be hard to imagine how people go about their daily life without cars, in Venice everything is moved by boat, the postal services, parcels, logs for building in fact all kinds of building materials...

teacherofhooch 18.02.2006 · Read review
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Review of Venice (Italy)

A Little Square in Venice

Advantages: Great location, comfortable, quiet, secure
Disadvantages: Single bedroom a little basic

...Last November I took my third trip to Venice. It hadn?t been my intention to go at all; this holiday was a joint birthday present from me to my parents but they insisted that I go along with them to show them around. Venice is a beautiful and unique city, so how could I refuse? ◄Discovering Hotel Campiello► I discovered the Hotel Campiello on my second trip to Venice a few years ago. We were on a 10 day trip to Italy and had decided to spend most of the time in Rome and Florence, trying to leave 2 or 3 days free to include Venice. We had booked our hotels in Rome and Florence in advance but left the booking of the Venice leg until we were in Rome. We were staying at Hotel Paba in Rome (itself a gem of a place) and told the owner that we were thinking of booking into one of the big luxury hotels in the Venice Lido for 2...

Mitsudan 10.07.2007 · Read review
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Review of Hotel Campiello, Venice

Near Death In Venice

Advantages: Location, decor and super-efficient concierge
Disadvantages: Pricey for some

...The Londra Palace is one of the oldest hotels in Venice, having first opened its doors in 1860. Perhaps its most famous visitor, at least in terms of what he did there, was the Russian composer Tchaikovsky who actually wrote his Fourth Symphony there. Having just heard a rendition of this work by the London Philharmonic Orchestra in Torino it somehow seemed appropriate to stay there. An initial word of caution. If you ever arrive in Venice in the middle of a storm, maybe it is best to avoid a water taxi. Quite apart from the prohibitive fares (a typical two mile or so ride from the railway station to Piazza San Marco will set you back over £40) it can be DANGEROUS! The boat lurches like a bobcat when it moors beside a jetty and as the driver hols you have to jump onto a rather narrow and possibly slippery pier.... one step wrong...

JoePoirot 23.01.2006 · Read review
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Review of Hotel Londra Palace, Venice

'Peaceful' Venice

Advantages: Sometimes can feel like you have the whole palce to yourself; Sheer beauty
Disadvantages: Having to walk to each place, or take the bus, and face the crowds again

...Venice does seem to be a place that is hit or miss with people. Those who love it cite the romantic location; the vibrancy; the sheer difference of being somewhere different. Those who hate it can't stand the pervading watery smell; the cost of everything; or the simple fact that it's always so very, very busy. I easily fall into the first category, and yet the crowds still annoy me. I like going somewhere to see different things, but I also like to relax, and I wasn't sure this was possible in Venice. Until our last visit earlier this year. So here are my tips for getting the most out of 'peaceful' Venice. Piazza San Marco We'll start with the obvious one, although you might not be thinking it so obvious if you've ever had to battle through the crowds of people and pigeons. But get there early, especially on a Sunday morning...

blackpuddinonnabike 13.11.2007 · Read review
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Review of Venice (Italy)

  Venice In Peril? What About My Wallet?!

Advantages: Beautiful, unique, hasn't disappeared yet
Disadvantages: Daily budget - ouch

...CINQUE GIORNI A VENEZIA I?ve not previously spent long in Italy, apart from brief forays into the north whilst ?doing the passes? from Switzerland, and a couple of docking manoeuvres courtesy of a cheapo-cruise in the Med. (I?m the person who took one look at the queue for the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, and went and had a beer instead) It is therefore fitting, that in the year I start to add Italian to my list of ?languages of wine-growing nations? to which I can lay at least some claim to speak, that I should actually go there too. It was school half-term last week, and Mrs. Nibbles had been her usual profligate self with the holiday bookings, although to be fair, this was all done and dusted nearly a year ago, when she announced those momentous words ?I?ve booked us 5 days in Venice next February?. ?DOV?È?? ? Or ?I...

BNibbles 24.02.2005 (26.02.2005) · Read review
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Review of Venice (Italy)

Hitlon Hotel, Venice, Molino Stucky

Advantages: Great hotel, great location?
Disadvantages: Perhaps too big!

...Last year in the Sunday supplements I read about the new Hilton Hotel that had just opened in Venice and they had comments on the wonderful views and the roof terrace. As we had booked to visit Venice in March of this year, and had been several times before this was an opportunity to see another view of Venice from a different area. I had read that it is a large hotel and thinking about Venice and the size it must be out of the main Venice tourist area, we had not seen any building work on that scale the year before. The Hilton hotel is in the Giudecca area of Venice away from St. Mark's Square. We had to catch a water bus from San Zaccaria, over to Zitelle and then just wondered along until we arrived at the Hilton which is the other end of Giudecca Island. They do say that Elton John has a house in this part of Venice...

bostonianbeer 27.03.2008 · Read review
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Review of Hilton Molino Stucky Hotel, Venice

No fleas, just wonderful Venice glass.

Advantages: Easy find, easy found, with some great bargains.
Disadvantages: None other than baggage allowance.

...Having arrived on the bus from the airport we decided to walk to our hotel near the hospital in Venice. On our walk we came across a flea market, near the hospital in the area called San Giovanni e Paolo. It was Saturday lunch and the area was alive with stalls, sellers, buyers and browsers. We took our cases to the hotel and walked the short distance back and became the browsers. There was Murano glass both old and new, second hand and chipped. Trinkets, jewellery, photos, buttons made from glass that I hadn?t seen the likes of for years. When I was small all my hand knitted cardigans that my mum made me had glass buttons on them. Chandeliers of varying sizes, wall mounted lights, coins of every denomination. We found a couple of 1948, 1 shilling?s (now 5p?s) that they had in a mixed coin box. The stall holder was selling these...

bostonianbeer 29.03.2009 · Read review
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Review of Venice Flea Market

Pizzas to beat the credit Crunch in Venice

Advantages: Beats the CREDIT CRUNCH
Disadvantages: Cant go every week.

...As the exchange rate Pond v Euro is very poor at the moment in fact last week it was almost one to one, we were a little more careful than usual in selecting places to Eat on our Venice trip. This one fits the bill very well, even at 1 euro to the pound. It is located in the San Palo area of venice, not far from Da Sandro Restaurant which I reviewed after last years trip. Cross Rialto Bridge, you pass down past the TOURIST TACK Cabins, when you come to the end of those turn left down the shopping street. About 100 yards down keep looking down the small streets to the right and you will see ANTICO PANIFICO. As I was in charge this lunch time, I had been scanning Menus, I looked for the Magareta Pizza price as a quick guide, most had been about 8 or 9 Euros even 12 near St Marks, so when this one showed at 5.5 Euros...

poshtroika 27.03.2009 · Read review
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Review of Pizzeria Antico Panificio, Venice

Sensory overload in Venice

Advantages: Great food writing, delicious recipes, interesting factual stuff
Disadvantages: Not enough recipes; overly flowery descriptions; unappealing characters

...There are some books that just refuse to be pigeon-holed, assuming that one need do that at all. Not only is Marlena de Blasi's debut a book that is difficult to label but it is one that confounds and and yet enchants with each turn of the page. I raced through the book relishing every word, but found myself seething with indignation at bad writing and annoyed with a narrator who just made me want to scream. "A Thousand Days in Venice: an unexpected romance" is usually stacked on bookshops with travel writing and indeed, it does fit into that genre. But it is travel writing that focuses primarily on the domestic. It is undoubtedly a memoir, but a memoir that is forever pointing the reader forwards, wondering what may be. The cover notes say that the book "Includes recipes" but in reality there are few. In her subtitle de Blasi refers...

fizzytom 16.06.2008 · Read review
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Review of A Thousand Days in Venice - Marlena di Blasi