What should I avoid in Venice?

The costliest mistake in Venice is sitting down at a table on Piazza San Marco. Caffè Florian and Gran Caffè Quadri add a music supplement of around €6 per person whenever the orchestra plays, and two cappuccinos at an outdoor table can pass €30. Stand at the counter inside Florian, though, and the same coffee costs a fraction of that, under the same gilded mirrors. The other trap is the strip of restaurants with laminated photo menus along Lista di Spagna, the street running from Santa Lucia station: expect frozen seafood risotto, a coperto of €3 or more per head, and a 12% servizio on top. In 2018 four Japanese students were charged €1,100 for steaks and fish at a trattoria near San Marco, and the city later fined the restaurant. Walk 10 minutes instead to the bacari of San Polo. Cantina Do Mori, behind the Rialto market, pours an ombra of Veneto white for a couple of euros, and its baccalà mantecato on grilled polenta tastes of salt cod and olive oil. A spritz there costs about €4.

Gondolas and Murano are next. The official gondola rate is €90 (about $101) for 30 minutes by day and €110 after 7pm, for up to five passengers, and anyone near San Marco quoting more is padding the price. If you want a few minutes in a gondola, take the traghetto at Santa Sofia, beside the Rialto fish market, which crosses the Grand Canal for €2. Turn down any 'free' boat to Murano offered at a hotel desk or on the Riva degli Schiavoni: those rides end in a showroom where the sales staff work on commission, and much of the cheap glass in the shops around Rialto Bridge is imported. Genuine pieces carry the Vetro Artistico Murano trademark sticker. Skip the St Mark's Campanile queue too. The bell tower of San Giorgio Maggiore is one vaporetto stop across the basin, with a lift and a short line, and the view is better because it looks back at St Mark's Basilica and the Doge's Palace instead of standing among them. At the Bridge of Sighs, the Ponte della Paglia is a shoulder-to-shoulder crush by 10am.

Your first hour can go wrong at Marco Polo Airport. A water taxi to a hotel runs past €120, while the ATVO bus reaches Piazzale Roma in about 20 minutes for €10. A single vaporetto ticket costs €9.50 for 75 minutes, so the €25 24-hour pass pays off if you'll ride more than twice. Avoid Line 1 between 10am and 4pm: day-trippers pack the deck and pickpockets work the crowd, and Line 2 covers the Grand Canal faster. On days the city designates in spring and summer, day-trippers also pay an access fee, currently €5 if booked ahead and €10 at the last minute, though overnight guests are exempt once they register. Venice enforces its decorum rules hard. In August 2019, two German backpackers were fined €950 and expelled for brewing coffee on a camping stove at the foot of the Rialto Bridge. Sitting on monument steps, picnicking in Piazza San Marco, and swimming in the canals all bring fines.

Late October through January is acqua alta season. Sirens sound across the sestieri a few hours before a high tide, and the pattern of tones tells you the expected height. The MOSE barriers have been in service since October 2020 and now hold back most tides above roughly 110 cm, though Piazza San Marco is still the lowest ground in the city and floods at lower tides. Cold lagoon water soaks through trainers within a minute, so buy plastic overboots from a kiosk for about €10 to €20 rather than wading through. Fog comes off the lagoon on November mornings and can slow or cancel boats to Murano and Burano. In July and August, expect damp heat above 30°C, a sour smell from the narrow rii at low tide, and mosquitoes along the Cannaregio fondamente after dark.