Italy Day 1: Venice Sightseeing

Venice Italy sighting guide, tips how to spend a rainy day in Venice, and where to find the best gelato in Venice, Italy.

Italy Day 1
Location: Venice- sightseeing

Cost: Free! I’d bring a few Euros to get souvenirs and gelato here

Time: Plan at least a half day to walk around, take pictures, and get lost in one of the coolest cities in the world! Seriously, I wish we would have had a full day for just exploring and another to go visit the surrounding islands. Glass blowing-and lace making are big in these parts, so if you’re looking to buy some souvenirs this is a great place to find those items!

*Brace yourself for picture overload, we’ve been a few places, but this may be the most photogenic place we’ve been to in the world!

My fear after day 1 was we did the best part of Italy first. We only spent a night and a day in Venice and I honestly could have stayed several and been just fine. I loved the rest of Italy, but Venice was smaller, more peaceful, and gave off that stereotypical vibe with gondolas and accordion music at every turn.

Venice Italy boat Transportation and skyline.

Unfortunately for us it rained most of the day so any dream of a gondola ride was squashed, but we still made the best of it, and gloomy lighting that came for our pictures I won’t complain about! It was so beautiful and just walking around this place makes the trip to Italy totally worth it in my opinion!

Venice Italy gondola parked on the water channel.

Venice Canals with skyline and boats in a picturesque view.

The city is in fact sinking, and we knew we needed to get there earlier in life just in case so we could see it! It does flood often and some of the buildings seem to be sinking and lopsided too. It was very interesting to see the restoration efforts and the parts they are sort of letting go.

Another reason to go here sooner than later- it’s dying a little more each year economically speaking as it’s very expensive to live there and there aren’t too many industries to be a part of outside of tourism. However, to think about how this used to be THE TRADE center of the world with exported/imported good from almost every country is truly an amazing thing to think about! It’s one of the reasons the Roman Empire was the Roman Empire! So much money went through Venice and I’m sure to this day there are people who hate the Passage to India and the “New World” discovery by Columbus who ruined their monopoly on trade. With each boat that passed by I thought of ancient times and the types of international trade that took place- what a busy place with so much wealth it must have been! It was really overwhelming and surreal to think I was in this world-famous location- even when fighting jet lag.

Venice, Italy canals with boats next to colorful buildings.

We were told by many to go get lost in Venice. It was not intentional, but Google Maps lead us astray and we found ourselves in random alleys hoping to get back to the main passageway. The happiest thing happened- We ran into the highest-rated gelato place in Venice for what may have been my favorite gelato of the entire trip! I’ll write an entire post about Italian gelato because, frankly, it deserves it. But truly, if you’re in Venice add Gelateria Il Doge to your list! And really, go get lost so you can find something magical while there!

Venetian Canals and beautiful city views.

All pictures were taken by Camille and Jacob Whiting of Friday We’re in Love and are copyrighted. If you wish to use any pictures please contact us for written permission to do so.

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