Many tourist articles I read on Venice complained about the high price of stuff in the city due to everything having to be shipped in over the water. Honestly, I did not find prices in Venice to be high at all. In general, prices in Venice were less than in my home town of Monterey, California for most things I needed as a tourist visiting the city.
Booking a 6-night stay in a suite at Aquarius Hotel using 96,000 Choice Privileges points kept my lodging expense down to $83 per night. In general, I was surprised at the time I booked Hotel Aquarius to see a large number of places around Venice on Google Hotels with room nights under $100 for a stay during the first week of April 2022.Â
This article gives a breakdown of expenses we incurred and the general price of things during our stay in Venice, Italy.
Transportation
From the airport: Bus is €8 one way, €15 round trip.
Water Taxi from airport is about €15 each way. This is probably desirable if you are staying in San Marco or Castello or more than a mile from Piazzale Roma or the train station. There are a lot of stairs to move luggage over the canal bridges as you cross Venice.
A tourist ticket office for local bus and boat services is located in the arrivals hall at Venice Marco Polo Airport. You can buy transportation tickets to Venice before you leave the terminal.
The nonstop Airport Bus to Piazzale Roma bus stop at Venice Airport is across the street outside the terminal doors. There is luggage space under the bus.
On our trip back to Venice airport we rode the regular Actv #5 bus where we had to hold our luggage in our lap and use the baby stroller section for our two roller bags. Still cost €8 one way for the airport.Â
Public bus from Piazzale Roma, Venezia to Mestre is only €1.50 one way, €3.00 round trip if you choose to stay on the mainland and day trip into Venice.Â
Vaporetto Tickets: The public transportation Vaporetto ferry boats are the best way to get around Venice when you don’t want to walk everywhere. We did not use Vaporetto during our stay. I had considered buying a 48-hour Vaporetto pass, however, the weather was great during our trip and we preferred to walk around Venice rather than taking a trip to Lido or one of the other islands.
Buying an unlimited travel pass for the Vaporetto is generally more economical than single trips if you will be in Venice for multiple days.
single trip = €7.50 valid for 75 minutes.
24-hour ticket = €21
48-hour ticket = €30
72-hour ticket = €40
7-days ticket = €60
3-day ticket for persons age 6 to 29 = €28 (Rolling Pack special offer)
Museums: We did not visit any museums in Venice. Long lines for Doge’s Palace and other St. Mark’s Square attractions and the necessity of advance reservations combined with our hesitancy to mingle with a crowd kept us away from museums during what were, at the time, still relatively high Covid-19 infection levels in Italy compared to California.
Venezia Unica City Pass is the official Venice tourism site to check their array of tourist discount cards if you plan to visit multiple museums in Venice.
Food and Drink
We ate seafood every day of our stay in Venice. We only had one restaurant meal in Venice with a few pizza takeaways. The presence of a Coop market directly across from Hotel Aquarius on San Giacomo d’Orio square kept us eating in our room most lunch and dinner meals. Coop Market prices seemed in line with prices I pay in California for many items with some notable items much lower priced than I pay at home.
Breakfast buffet was provided each morning at our hotel. A small refrigerator in our room meant we could buy and store perishable food from Coop and keep our drinks chilled. I picked up fruit at the breakfast buffet for snacks on our walks around Venice.
Sample Coop Market prices
- Sparkling Water – acqua frizzante €0.23 to €1.19 per 1.5 liter bottle (depending on brand).
- Coca-Cola/Coke Zero €1.19 per 1.5 liter bottle.
- Bread rolls (fresh baked) about €0.50 each. Baguette around €2.00.
- Bowl of Mussels = €4.05 (on sale)
- Breaded calamari strips 500 grams = €4.70 (50% off regular price)
- Cup of olives = €3.40
- Broccoli bunch = €1.60
- Brie wedge = €2.50
- Hummus = €2.80
- Cheese wedges = €2.00 to €4.00.
- Packaged turkey and cheese sandwich = €2.99
- Cashew nuts = €4.38 for a small container.
- 100 gram Chocolate bar = €1.70
- Beer = €0.75 – €1.39 per 660 ml bottle.
- Wine = plenty of inexpensive wines, but I have no price details.
Italian Beer
The first day I walked into Coop Market I found a great deal on Birra Peroni, Italy’s most purchased beer, on sale for €0.75 per 660 ml bottle. That is equivalent to paying $2.50 USD per six-pack in California. I had to diversify away from Peroni by the end of our stay.
In general, most Italian commercial beers like Birra Moretti, Forst, Castello and Peroni Nastro Azzurro were priced €1.29 or €1.39 for 660 ml bottles at Coop Market.
We came across Venezia Beer Market one day where I sighted Sierra Nevada Pale Ale at €6.50 per 12 oz bottle (and laughed). They had a great selection of Italian microbrews and even Menabrea beer Kelley wanted to buy for our room, but at €4 per bottle we could opt to drink for that price at Osteria da Filo, our local pub.
Drinking in Venice led to one of the other expenses we encountered. Given the 30-minute-plus walks between San Marco and Castello districts to Aquarius Hotel in Santa Croce, Kelley occasionally needed to use public toilets. All public toilets in Venice are €1.50 to use. Toilets are most prevalent around St. Mark’s Square and the four Grand Canal bridges.
Fruit and Vegetable Markets
There are several squares around Venice where you can buy fresh fruits and vegetables daily.
The main outdoor market in Venice is near Rialto Bridge on the Sestiere San Polo side.Â
Taverna da Baffo
A lunch meal at Taverna da Baffo was our only restaurant dining experience in Venice. We both ordered seafood fettucine (€15 plate) and paid €50 for two meals with four Menabrea beers.
Pizza
Walking around Venice works up an appetite. A couple of different places we dropped into a pizza shop for a takeaway slice priced at €2 or €3.
Pizza 2000 came up on Google Maps for a search I made while we were drinking beer at Santa Margherita Square in Dorsoduro. We wanted a pizza to take back to our room and Pizza 2000 was less than five minutes walk to our hotel. A small pizza with four slices from Pizza 2000 for €5.00 to €7.50 was a meal for two persons. A large pizza with 8 slices for €10 to €15 was plenty for two days. The large pizza was in a larger box than a Costco pizza.
Kelley likes to shop for handbags and jewelry and she found plenty of items to buy to stuff in her carry-on roller bag. When we returned to California she expressed wishing she had bought more tourist trinkets for the house and her friends. There are plenty of opportunities to shop in Venice, especially if you are in the market for a decorative mask.
Venice Stairways and Canals (April 2022)
Stairways across Venice for Star Alliance Gold status renewal
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Hotel Aquarius Venice, Choice Hotels Ascend Collection
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Views from the four bridges over Venice’s Grand Canal
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