Venice
Italy
A city built on water, sinking beautifully
Photo by Dan Novac on Unsplash
Photos by Henrique Ferreira, adrian krajcar, Israel Ferrera and Kit Suman on Unsplash
Best time to visit all of Italy
April to May, October to early November
Climate month by month
The next sixteen daysOpen-Meteo
Average high and low · °C
Rainfall · mm per month
Best months to visit This month · wettest 87mm in Nov
Where it is
45.44°N, 12.32°E Open in Google Maps
Things to do
A week easily- Visit St Mark’s Basilica early
- Tour the Doge’s Palace
- Ride vaporetto line 1 down the Grand Canal
- Go to Burano and Murano islands
- Get deliberately lost in Cannaregio
- Climb San Giorgio Maggiore bell tower
Venice travel tipsthe general rules
Currency budget Italy
ExpensiveEuro. Venice has the highest concentration of bad exchange booths in Italy — all of them around San Marco. Use a card.
ATMs & cards
Bank ATMs thin out inside the islands. Withdraw near Piazzale Roma or Rialto from Intesa or UniCredit. Decline conversion.
Avoid these
- Euronet
- ATMs around San Marco
Use these instead
- Intesa Sanpaolo
- UniCredit
Bank machines thin out inside the islands — withdraw near Piazzale Roma or Rialto.
Wherever you are: if the machine offers to charge you in your home currency, decline. That is dynamic currency conversion and the rate is set by the ATM's operator, not your bank.
Safety all of Italy
SafeExtremely safe — no cars and few crimes beyond pickpocketing at San Marco. Check for acqua alta flooding forecasts between October and January.
Where to walk, and where to pay attention (3 areas)
Comfortable, including after dark
- Venice — all of the historic city, one of the safest places in Europe
Worth more attention
- Venezia Santa Lucia — and the Rialto vaporetto stops, for pickpockets
- The unlit calli late at night, which is a navigational problem rather than a safety one
Venice has almost no street crime and no cars; the real risk here is a bill in an unpriced restaurant.
Our own assessment, not a sourced index.
Entry & visa Italy visa rules
No visa needed
Freedom of movement — no time limit, and no visa. Bring a passport or national ID card.
Other passports
No visa neededup to 90 days
90 days within any 180-day period, counted across the whole Schengen area, not per country. ETIAS, a paid online authorisation, is being introduced for these passports — check the official link for whether it applies to your travel dates.
Visa required in advance€90 (Schengen short-stay visa)
A Schengen short-stay visa is applied for before travel, at the consulate of your main destination.
How to get it: Apply at the consulate or visa centre of the country you will spend most time in, typically 15 working days ahead and no more than six months before travel.
Entry rules change often and depend on your passport, not where you live — the official page above is the authority, and the airline checks before you board.
Health & emergencies all of Italy
Excellent and cheapRequired to enter
No vaccinations are required for entry from Europe or North America.
Jabs worth having, and what happens if you need a doctor
Worth having
- Routine vaccinations up to date
Getting treated
EU/EEA and Swiss visitors are treated on the same terms as residents with an EHIC or GHIC card; UK visitors use a GHIC. Everyone else pays, and travel insurance is worth having for the repatriation cover rather than the treatment. Pharmacies handle a lot of minor problems directly and are the fastest route to advice.
Orientation, not medical advice — entry rules change and what you need depends on your own history. Check with a travel clinic four to six weeks before you go.
Food tip
GoodDo a giro d’ombra: hop between bacari bars for small cicchetti plates and a glass of wine. Cannaregio and around Rialto market are where locals do it.
Nightlife
An early evening, not a late one. Spritz and cicchetti standing at a bacaro, then the city empties.
- Fondamenta della Misericordia — the one street with a run of bars
- Campo Santa Margherita — the student square, and the only late one
- Rialto Market — the bacari around it, before dinner
Closing: Most bacari shut by 21:00 or 22:00; Santa Margherita is the only reliable late option.
A beer in a bar: €4–7
Half the visitors leave on the last train, so the city is quietest exactly when a night out would start.
Getting around
Workable- From the airport
- Marco Polo to Piazzale Roma €10 on the bus, €15 on the Alilaguna boat, €120–140 by water taxi
No cars, so no ride-hailing. The vaporetto is the bus and a private water taxi is the extravagance — around €80–110 from the airport area into the city, agreed before you board.
Time zone and your working day
Europe/Rome — 6 hours ahead of you
2 hours of overlap with a 09:00–17:00 day where you are — 09:00–11:00 your time, 15:00–17:00 theirs.
No overlap with a 09:00–17:00 day where you are. Working from here means one of you keeps odd hours — their day starts at 03:00 on your clock.
office hours both at once night
Their 09:00–17:00 is 03:00–11:00 on yours.
The difference from the UK, Europe, the US and ten more
Worked out against America/New York, which is where this request looks like it came from.
Internet speedall of Italy
Why these are Italy's numbers and not Venice's
Home broadband — Good. Comfortable for two people working, streaming in the evening, large downloads. Broadband here runs at 84% of the global median of 130 Mbps.
Mobile data — Fair. Maps, calls and streaming; tethering a laptop works for an hour, not a day. Mobile runs at 78% of the global median of 109 Mbps.
Ookla publishes no separate figure for Venice, so these are medians for all of Italy. Cities usually beat the national number and remote islands and national parks fall well below it — treat this as the country's shape, not as a measurement of the street you will be staying on.
A median is the middle of every connection tested there, old copper and new fibre together — so in a country part-way through laying fibre it sits well below what a fibre line actually delivers, and a rental on one can run several times this number. Half of the connections are slower; a fibre flat is rarely one of them. It says what a place can do, not what your rental does, so every listing on Holistay carries its own measured speed and the date it was tested.
Getting online: Airalo or Holafly — a data eSIM for Italy, installed before you fly and working the moment you land.
Source: Ookla Speedtest Global Index · measured June 2026
Must-see
Nearby day trips
Say a few words
Italian
- HelloBuongiornobwon-JOR-no
- PleasePer favoreper fa-VO-reh
- Thank youGrazieGRAT-tsyeh
- Yes / NoSì / Nosee / no
4 more phrases
- Excuse meScusiSKOO-zee
- How much is it?Quanto costa?KWAN-to KOS-ta
- The bill, pleaseIl conto, per favoreeel KON-to
- Cheers!Salute! / Cin cin!sa-LOO-teh / chin chin
Ciao is for people you know. With shopkeepers and waiters, buongiorno until evening, then buonasera.
Religion
Catholic
The Vatican is a sovereign state inside Rome. Dress codes are enforced at St Peter’s and most major churches: shoulders and knees covered, and they will turn you away.
Do's and don'ts
Do
- Say buongiorno rather than ciao to anyone you do not know
- Drink cappuccino only before about 11:00; after a meal it is an espresso
- Cover shoulders and knees to enter churches, including the major basilicas
- Validate regional train tickets before boarding or risk a fine
Don't
- Do not ask for parmesan on seafood pasta — it is a genuine culinary offence here
- Do not sit on monument steps in Rome or Florence; both cities fine it
- Do not order a coffee "to go" and expect it to be normal
- Do not tip beyond rounding up; coperto already covers the cover charge
Where to stay in Venice
No Holistay rentals in Venice yet — the platform is just opening up. Every listing here will have a video tour and the option to negotiate the nightly price directly with the host.
In the meantime, here is Venice on the sites that do have the inventory — each search is already filled in:
- Booking.com hotels, guesthouses and apartments — the widest coverage almost everywhere
- Airbnb whole homes and apartments, and the better option for a week or more
How to get there
Fly into Marco Polo VCE
1h 15mfrom the airport· 8 km as the crow flies
Alilaguna boat to San Marco, 75 min, or the bus to Piazzale Roma in 20.
Also worth pricing: Treviso TSF — low-cost carriers, 70 min by bus.
Google Flights · Rome2Rio for the trains, buses and ferries as well as the flights
