Hi guys welcome to another episode of Ultimate Bucket List and on today's show
I'm here in the very lovely northern city of Venice.
Everything that you think about Venice is true it's a very stereotypical and
it's pretty much exactly as advertised it's a city that's built on a lagoon and
whether or not you're here for the interesting architecture the bridges or
the water that surrounds it all it's a very lovely place to explore indeed and
I highly recommend that you come here once in your life to do so now even
though Venice is a very very big city it's very very walkable I highly
recommend that you spend the time to actually walk around the city and
explore all the interesting buildings and stuff but when I came there'd been a
recent coronavirus outbreak so a lot of the attractions were actually closed
take for example this one the music venue here in Venice but unfortunately
because of the recent coronavirus outbreaks the government have mandated
that everything closes so this was actually closed more on that later but
one thing that wasn't closed was the gondola service and it's not exactly
what I would call cheap it's about 80 euros for about 30 minutes of somebody
pushing you around a bit of water and if you're only here once in your life I
highly recommend that you do pay the money and or a gondola if there's a
whole group of you ie if there's up to six of you because it is actually fairly
reasonable you could split that 80 euros between the six of you and it's actually
quite decent definitely a romantic thing to do especially if you're coming here
with your other half and you can take these girls from pretty much anywhere in
the city if Connells on your thing there's lots
of interesting places to visit such as bars with bras on the roof that's also a
Celtic fan / huh very strange and there's lots of interesting shots
when you walk around Venice literally around every corner you'll see something
that's very stereotypically Italian you'll notice that there's a main body
of water that cuts right from Venice and this is the Grand Canal this is a long
s-band that's about 2.4 miles that goes all the
way through the middle of Venice and the most famous bridge that crosses all of
us is this the rialto bridge one of the most famous bridges in all of the free
world exactly call it a bridge because it's absolutely massive
in fact it's so big that they've actually built shops all the way up and
down it so you could go up and down and buy jewelry or souvenirs on this bridge
if you do want to take pictures of this bridge you can add a ticket from the top
of the bridge from down below where the gondolas are you can even catch a boat
ride and take some of the more picturesque shots that you sent on the
travel programs but I highly recommend that you actually go into the shopping
center right next to the bridge and climb up onto the roof terrace where you
can see a 360-degree view of the entire city on a nice day like today it's
actually very pretty especially overlooking the bridge I
highly recommend that you do this mainly because it's free there's lots of people
walking around in costume today I actually came at the time of the
Venice Carnival unfortunately the government cancelled that as well that
hasn't stopped the revelers dressing up in their costumes and going out onto the
streets anyway it's refreshing to know that not everyone is scared of some
stupid virus and if you want to dress like them there sell costumes and masks
in literally every other shop you'll be astounded by the amount of places that
will sell you stuff like this so bear in mind you've got lots of souvenirs to
take home the other famous traction is this san
marco piazza or st. mark's square this comprises of this the famous bell tower
the basilica which unfortunately surprise surprise was closed to the
public due to the stupid virus and also doge's palace which unfortunately was
also closed to the public today even though these buildings and attractions
are closed it's still pretty cool to walk around anyway the stonework
especially is pretty intricate and you can walk around at bar oh wow ok they're
not ghosts they're just people in costume
great but it's nice to walk around anyway especially if you get lovely
views over the water like this it's all very very picturesque and all very very
romantic if you do find people in costume tried to take picture themselves
offer to take the pictures for them because more often than not they
actually let you take pictures for yourself just like this right next to
doges palace is this the infamous Bridge of Sighs now
the Bridge of Sighs is the bridge that prisoners would be hauled over and they
take one last look of Venice and sigh before being locked away for good so
this is a pretty iconic bridge and if you manage to get a gondola right
underneath the Bridge of Sighs that's actually a pretty cool experience but no
matter where you walk in Venice it's all actually very picturesque it's pretty
stereotypical with the poles and the gondolas and the lovely lovely buildings
if you can't afford the gondolas I highly recommend taking these cream
colored water buses instead more on that later
there's always an interesting building or Church to look at and there's
actually quite a lot of them whether it's an interesting church or
interesting bridges or interesting streets I highly recommend just walking
around and taking in the sights with no agenda whatsoever you might be surprised
what you might find including this thing the other famous
bridge that crosses the Grand Canal is the academic bridge it has some lovely
views of the Grand Canal and of everything
along the canal it's a foggy day today admittedly so there's not much to see
but it doesn't detract from the fact that this is a cool bridge and you do
get some pretty cool sights this is Santa Maria della salute a it's a lovely
church that's free to go into but bearing in mind
no masquerade masks upon entry which is kind of a weird requirement have a look
around the church anyway because it's a very interesting church and again it's
free to go inside so that's definitely a bonus right next to Santa Maria you get
some lovely views of st. Mark's Square across the water that's that thing
behind all the fog and some of the other islands that's a dotted around Venice
again surrounded by fog if you ever wondered how they get those giant
statues into these churches this is how as I've mentioned before it's a very
romantic city so if you want to take your boyfriend or girlfriend or husband
or wife here that's absolutely fine don't be surprised to see people getting
married here as this place is incredibly picturesque even the not so nice parts
is actually very very pretty so if you are here for romantic purposes you're in
for an excellent time now I actually tried to go into the Opera House which
apparently is very very lovely but as you can imagine and as you've probably
already guessed when I tried to go in unfortunately as you can see from the
board's they've suspended pretty much all the performances because of this
stupid virus so it gives me an excuse to go back one day it's refreshing to know
that not a lot of people are scared of getting a virus or catching diseases
from pigeons like this guy a brave guy and one of the thing I forgot to mention
Venice is heavily guarded there's literally police everywhere so there's
no chance of trouble ever breaking out even if you have no agenda walk around
Venice anyway because you'll never know what you might find you might even find
this place the Venice Arsenal no not this kind of Arsenal but this is
basically the defense for the city of Venice and unfortunately it's shot but
that doesn't attract from the fact that it's actually quite a cool building to
walk around but there's only so many buildings and gondola rides that you can
do here in Venice without getting bored I highly recommend if you are getting
bored taking a water bus to some of the islands that surrounds Venice not a lot
of people realize this but Venice is actually a lagoon city that's surrounded
by very solid islands and you'll need to take the water buses in order to access
them these water buses as you can imagine are fairly easy to navigate
around and they'll take you to pretty much every island a lot of travel guides
will advocate that you go to every island but in my experience there are
islands that are more interesting than others so I highly recommend that you go
first and foremost to the island of Murano Murano
is famous for its glass world famous in fact the finest glass in the world is
made here and as you can imagine the finest glass in the world isn't cheap in
fact you were paying 60 euros for a tumbler or 400 euros for assets that's
how expensive Murano glass is and some of this stuff belongs in an art gallery
seriously you could actually go into glass factories and pay a small
admission fee to actually watch how it's made and I highly recommend that you do
that it seems like a bit of a tourist grab but it's actually very interesting
but the town of Murano itself is very lovely
it's very walkable you could circumnavigate Murano in about 20
minutes or half an hour especially on a nice day like today it's actually a very
picturesque town to walk around with it's interesting buildings the water
that runs straight through it all and some of the architecture including some
of the churches and cathedrals here are actually quite interesting to look at
most of the time it's free anyway so if you're looking to kind of save money and
have something I highly recommend walking around Murano
just don't buy too many bits of glassware because that stuff's not cheap
the other island I highly recommend that you visit is the island of Burano now
Murano is home to Italy's lace making industry so if you're interested in
anything made of lace such as lace curtains lace clothing etc this is the
place to go to whilst I'm stocked up on bras and thongs at the moment thank you
very much if you did want to buy lace here it's actually very very cost
effective the other thing that Burano is famous for are is various colorful
houses seriously this is possibly the most colorful place that you'll ever
visit in your life all these houses are painted in what I can only describe this
dayglo colors and the painted in bright colors because it helps the fisherman
especially with the sea fog find their way home at night so that's quite
interesting even in the back streets all of the houses are painted in some bright
color you'll see some very interesting things here in Verona such as the
leaning tower of Verona no that's not a camera trick it's
actually falling over I highly recommend that you walk around the town and just
have a look at all the kooky houses that are around because it's actually quite
interesting and kind of tempted to paint my house bright orange now now whilst
that was interesting the other non interesting islands include the islands
of tour cello which admittedly there's not that much there there's one very
long canal a restaurants a bridge without any sides and at the end of it
all there's this church which surprise price and not open and that's about it
there's really nothing here into a cello to hold your attention so I highly
recommend that you don't come here even if somebody offers to take you also
that's not worth it the island of Lido this is the venue for the Venice Film
Festival but when the festivals not on there's things to see such as various
buildings a free Beach which is very lovely especially on a nice day like
today but that's about it there's actually
nothing else on Lido apart from a very lovely beach the islands directly south
of the city of Venice don't bother there's really not much
there and a lot of travel guides recommend going to the Jewish ghetto
which is a ghetto I'm gonna tell asure why they'd recommend this house
thoroughly disappointed because you know it's a ghetto it's kind of like going to
New York and saying oh yes I want to go to Harlem so I highly recommend that you
don't come here if you happen to visit San Jose oh the church are on an island
I highly recommend that you visit that it's a basic stereotypical Church free
to enter of course but apart from that it's just a church on an island but the
one thing I do recommend you do is the Chi Matero the cemetery that's located
on an island yes I know I know it's not a tourist attraction it's a
place of the dead and I should respect that it's actually kind of cool to walk
around the cemetery the size of a national park there are actually famous
people that are buried here the most famous in my opinion being the composer
Igor Stravinsky but it's actually kind of cool to walk around the graves and
take a look at the city of Venice from afar but overall Venice is exactly as
advertised whether it's the fancy buildings the gondola rides across town
or the very very narrow streets you'll be all at the fact that people actually
live like this out here okay nin I'm salt what are we to do well you'll need
to get here to the city of Venice it's served by two international airports the
closest being Marco Polo to get from Marco Polo to Venice I
highly recommend that you take the 8 Evo shuttle bus from platform number 3 all
the way to Pia tell aroma which is the main bus station in Venice mine tick is
is easy just go on to a ticket machine and have it validated and literally away
you go and it roughly takes about half an hour from start to finish
Venice is a very walkable city and you can walk pretty much everywhere but if
you do need to get around some of the islands I highly recommend that you take
the water bus now the water bus stops are here in bright yellow and to buy
your tickets I highly recommend that you go to one of the machines select English
of course and I actually bought one of the tourist two day passes because I was
only here for a couple of days what - spits out your tickets all you need to
do then on every stop is to validate it on these white units and you must
validate it before you get on the boats otherwise you will be fined even if you
have a valid ticket you'll also be fined if you actually step on the pontoon
without a valid ticket as well so they actually take this stuff really
seriously and to navigate it's basically like a metro system just on water so
it'll take you a while to figure out but you generally will
obviously you can ride a gondola everywhere but the scoobert uber
expensive and alternatively you can hire water taxis but they're not much cheaper
so I highly recommend using the water bus if you really don't want to walk the
cost to do the attractions well obviously most of the attractions were
short while I was here as you can imagine from a very expensive tourist
centric city the hotels food souvenirs etc can all add up if you want it to so
I highly recommend watching your budgets but at the same time know that you'll
have to spend the money at some point or another
is there anything else I need to know yes there are various laws that you will
inadvertently break while you're here in Venice such as littering not validating
your tickets sitting or lying down in st. Mark's Square or eating and drinking
in the wrong places and the police can issue fines literally on the spot so be
very very cautious of that and obviously as previously mentioned if you are going
to go on a gondola and you don't want to blow 80 euros for 30 minutes find
somebody else that will share the boat ride with you if you do want the bow to
yourself then unfortunately you're just gonna have to pay the money if you have
enjoyed this video please be sure to like share and subscribe comments on the
comment section below and if you've got any other ideas for a bucket list
suggestions to eat them at me forget enough suggestions I'll go ahead and do
that so guys thank you very much for watching and we'll see you in the next
episode
Ninh Ly - www.ninh.co.uk - @NinhLyUK