Your tips in Venice please

[Frenchgirl]

Off to Venice next week for 5 days (Monday to Friday) with dd (6 and a half)
dh went years ago but it's my first time

so what are your tips and fab secret places (I won't tell anyone else )

Can't wait to go as we've had a sh*t two months...

There's nothing like a trip to Italy to make you mourn your lost youth!

yes! italian students are definitely more alluring than british ones....

Frenchgirl - thank you so much for all this - desperate to go now!!!!

So pleased I have found this thread I'm off to Venice in August for 2 weeks. Frenchgirl thanks for all the tips I will have to print this off for future reference.

This time, for nice shops (apart from the obvious Louis Vuitton et al...):
do go to the Fondaco Valese shop on Calle Fiubera in San Marco, it's the shop of the last venetian foundry, they make all the horses for the gondolas (they have 60 different types of horses), and lots of other beautiful things. Loredetta Valese looks after the shop, her brothers used to work in the foundry (we met her and one of her brothers), but they are going to sell or close the foundry because either her son or nephew (can't remember!!) has an incurable cancer. She is a lovely old lady, speaks good english and will show you around the shop and have a good natter, she's fabulous!!! We bought a little bronze gongola horse for dd to keep (I think it was 38 euros, probably the cheapest thing there!), it is signed with the date underneath, and was the last one in the shop. They had a beautiful little St Mark's lion for about the same price. Really worth a visit as it might not be around for much longer, at least not in this form. Do try and pay cash if you can there, she will appreciate.
The libreria Goldoni is great too (get the VivaVenice book for children, it is brilliant!), good choice of books on Venice and posters too.
I think I have already mentioned the Mondonovo mask shop.
Won't bore anyone with museums, that's all in guides anyway (but have to say that the Basilica was far more bautiful than I thought! and worth going up to see the museum where the real horses are and go out on the balcony for a great view and also the replica horses). Ca' Rezzonico was great, as was the Ca'D'Oro, and the Doges' Palace. By the way we had a great lunch in the cafeteria there, at the table straight in front of the door that opens on the side canal, looking at gondolas gliding past!
well I think that's it, so to everyone going next, have fun!!!

Hausfrau, I know you're busy but come and read this for two minutes escapism!

Have pasted all these tips into a word document and it is 4 pages long. Getting excited now. Thanks frenchgirl, Hausfrau and Albert for all these lovely ideas. After Venice it is off to Padova to stay with friends and then to stay on an organic farm in the Dolomites for the last 3 days.

Frenchgirl-- what fabulous posts!

Can I just ask, as a Venice virgin... Do you stand up on the vaporetti?

Thanks HF. Do they make regular stops, just like a bus? And do they only go up and down the Grand Canal?

Forgive shameful ignorance...

(Oh, and great news about USA, btw...!)

Ah, wish I was going (especially reading all this...) but am working on a book just now that's partly set in Venice. Ignorance making it heavy going.

Have fun robinpud!! And do report back please.
Orlando when you say 'working on a book', do you mean as in writing one? Sounds interesting, tell us more (and have you read Donna Leon's great crime stories all set in Venice? Brilliant!)

oh, it's not Loredetta Valese, it's Loredana.... (corrections for the pedants amongst us - am one and dd takes after me, v annoying )

lol Hausfrau, so true! I feel I have joined a club (only in beginners class though...) of very intense Venice lovers

I know, I know... that's why I'm struggling!

Am writing one, but its not as interesting as it sounds. (think slim paperback volume bearing distinctive rose motif...) Haven't read the books you mentioned, but dd lent me The Thief Lord by Cornelia Funke which is set in Venice and has been really helpful, and yesterday in desperation I also picked up Ian McEwan's The Comfort of Strangers. I'd forgotten how opressive it is, and found it extremely hard to resume a cheerful romantic tone!

Hausfrau you are scaring me sligtly now

I need to learn italian properly, v frustrating not to be able to!!!

aaaaaahhh

so that's what they based those scary carnival masks on!!!!!