Last week an article circulated around the internet about some tourists—Roman tourists no less!—that were shocked to receive a bill for €100 (about $133) for four coffees in St. Mark’s Square in Venice, Italy. Venice is certainly full of tourist traps that can turn into expensive lessons like this one (read the fine print on the menu!), but knowing how to avoid them will save you from leaving Serenissima with a sour taste.

Tourist Trap: Dinner with a view of the Rialto Bridge
Let me set the scene. You’ve wandered along the Grand Canal for that perfect photo of the Rialto Bridge crowning the canal in all it’s glory. Just as your shutter clicks, you hear the lilted Italian accent behind you inviting you in for the special tourist menu complete with a free Bellini. Don’t. Turn. Around. Just walk away as quickly as possible! Sure, the view is a spectacular one of the Rialto Bridge, but I guarantee your meal will not be.
What to do instead: Graze at Venice’s best cicchetti bars
Cicchetti are like Spanish tapas and cost €1-2 each. They are typically eaten standing up and are the most authentic Venetian cuisine you can have. A couple of my personal favorites are all located just steps away from the Rialto Bridge and frequented by locals. You won’t find any menus; just point to a couple that make your mouth water from the case of the day’s freshly made cicchetti.
Try: Cantina Do Mori at Sestiere San Polo, 429 or All’Arco at San Polo, 436.

Tourist Trap: Gondola ride
The movies would have you believe that a gondola ride along Venice’s canals is incredibly romantic. You envision yourself gliding along a deserted canal as a gondolier in black and white stripes sings in Italian and you steal a kiss with your lover. The reality is a gondola ride will run you around €80 for a 20-minute ride as your gondolier shouts back and forth with his gondolier friends in Italian, leaving you feeling like you’re on a packed ride at Disney World. And the singing? That will cost extra.
What to do instead: Learn to row your own Venetian gondola
Venice has only one rowing school for tourists and Row Venice delivers an experience you’ll truly remember for a lifetime. Not only did I row my very own gondola along Venice’s beautiful canals, but I also got a history lesson and learned a lot of fun facts about being a gondolier! A 2-hour lesson will cost €60 for singles, €40 per person for doubles, or €100 for a family (two adults and two children).

Tourist Trap: Gelato artigianale
There’s nothing better after traversing Venice’s 400+ bridges on a hot day than two scoops of gelato. You spot a gelato shop with beautiful, colorful gelato piled high in the case, topped with fresh fruit. Must be the good stuff, right? Wrong.
Artisanal gelato is made by hand, using fresh ingredients. The gelato that is piled high in the case is piled high because it has been whipped—and this is the first indication that it is not artisanal or even made on site. Another surefire indicator the color. Banana (banane) is a common flavor and it should be grayish, not bright yellow, and mint (menta) should be white instead of green.
What to do instead: Seek out Venice’s best gelato shops
The tiny Gelateria Alaska, tucked away on Calle Larga dei Bari, 1159, in the Santa Croce neighborhood, is Venice’s best gelateria in my opinion. Run by owner Carlo, who you’ll almost always find behind the counter, makes his homemade gelato daily. When he’s out of a certain flavor, that’s it for the day. Some of the flavors sound wild, but give them a try! His ginger gelato (zenzero) is a bit spicy, but surprisingly delicious. Another favorite of mine is the basil (basilico), amazingly refreshing on a hot summer day and pairs perfectly with strawberry (fragola).

Tourist Trap: Murano glass shops on the Rialto Bridge
Murano glass is so named because it actually is made on the island of Murano. Though it travels only a 20-minute boat ride across the lagoon, Murano glass can be marked up to double or triple the price in most shops on the Rialto Bridge or in St. Mark’s Square. And some of it isn’t even real; it’s made in China! If you absolutely must buy Murano glass in Venice, there are a few places I recommend such as Segreti Veneziani (also known as Rialto 79) where you’ll receive a certificate of authenticity for every piece.
What to do instead: Take a trip to Murano
Murano is easy to reach from Venice via vaporetto (water bus) on the 4.2 line from S. Zaccaria (the stop just in front of Doge’s Palace in St. Mark’s Square) or the 3 line from Piazzale Roma or Ferrovia (the bus and train stations). Once on Murano, wander in and out of the various glass shops and factories. Even if you’re not buying, it’s fun to see the glass makers melting and then molding glass into works of art. A 12-hour travel card costs €18 per person.

Tourist Trap: Coffee in St. Mark’s Square
The whole idea behind this post came from the most recent €100 bill for four coffees in St. Mark’s Square, so I certainly can’t leave you without a tip to avoid this tourist trap! St. Mark’s (San Marco in Italian) is Venice’s most beautiful, and actually only, piazza. But beware that occupying just about any of the outdoor tables in the piazza comes with a price tag.
What to do instead: Take your coffee at the bar
There is always a higher price for table service. This is because in Italy, servers are paid a wage instead of working for tips like in the U.S. A cappuccino or cafe americano that costs €1 at the bar can cost up to four times that when sitting. So, first wander out of St. Mark’s Square. You’ll find bars in just about any alley leading out of it. Second, live like a local and order your coffee at the bar standing up. You can actually get a coffee and a delicious pastry for the cost of just the coffee and sitting down for a few minutes!
For more from Jennifer on traveling smart in Italy, click here, and on Venice’s famous Carnival celebration, click here.
We experienced this in Venice. I had an injury and just thought someone was trying to be nice. He then took my husbands case too and at the bottom of the bridge proceeded to walk very very fast in the wrong direction to our hotel so my husband had to chase him and grab the cases. Then held his hand out for cash. I told him we’d literally just arrived and had no cash yet so nothing else he could do. The same man was there at 5.30am the next day and we very sternly told him no when he tried to do it again.
Crazy! Thanks for sharing
Another trap in Venice: the luggage helper over the bridge in Piaza di Roma!!! They offer to help you carry the luggage across the bridge and then ask for 15€ (per piece! they usually come in pair!) and become pretty aggressive if you refuse to pay. They won´t accept 1-2€. They are well known by the police or even protected by them as they won´t intervene. Be aware!
Great tips and will use these when returning to Venice (I live in Italy now).
First visited Venice in 2009. Just spent 9 days in Venice (will post a blog in the next few weeks) and couldn’t believe the changes.
One main change is that many of the Italian-run restaurants are either run by Chinese, Albanians, or Arabians. What has happened to the Italian chefs in Venice?
Most of the food around the popular tourists areas are the same expensive prices for the same tasteless meals dished up. It’s disappointing. Lucky we had our own self-catering apartment and could buy fresh ingredients to make our own food.
Gelato. I work in an Artigianale gelato shop, and ours IS home made, fresh every day. we make it for our three shops in venice ,has to delivered by boat every morning. its my job to decorate all of them BY HAND, and i make them high a swirly, i do it all with a spatula, its hard work. our gelato quality is fabulous, we use all natural ingredients and do also vegan options. the hight of the gelato has nothing to do with the gelato itself. the supermarket has flat gelato!! and its mass made crap. you need to look at texture and color mostly… ask questions, ask to taste. look it its watery. all of it comes out of a machine, even old carlo’s. he doesnt mix 150 kilos of ice cream with a spoon. what makes it different is ,like us, made in SMALL BATCHES, FRESH, GOOD NATURAL INGREDIENTS. height is completely up to whoever is holding the pan when its coming out.
I fell into the coffee-at-saint-mark’s-square trap and paid a fortune there.
Warning about buying glass in Murano…make sure you buy something you can carry out with you or ask to actually watch them crate the item and prepare it for shipment. We bought a beautiful and perfect piece of blown glass that we had crated and shipped to the states. This was at one of the large and reputable shops. When we received it about 6 weeks later we discovered they switched the perfect piece we bought with a different poor quality replica with bubbles in the glass and even a different set of colors. Very disappointing.
I agree with those who have posted about the 60€ vaparetto ‘non validation’ fine scam. It is indeed targeted at tourists. We had a 7 day ticket on a recent trip and were checked by inspectors or crew most days. Only those carrying a camera or luggage were checked! Luckily, we escaped a fine, but it doesn’t make any sense to check an ‘all you can eat’ season ticket for validation when there is no intention/possibility of fraud!! On our last day, I was dismayed when inspectors singled out a couple of harassed looking, elderly US tourists and announced ‘Non Bueno’ and a 120€ fine on them for not validating the tickets they had just bought. Anglophones beware… That said, it is a truly amazing city. The Bienniale Arts festival venues are free and quite often amazing experiences. Go to La Fenice Opera House on a performance day around 10 am and you’ll treated to a free dress rehearsal. I found the best Restaurants and Cicchetti bars were on Dursodoro. Murano and Burano islands are stunning and a must for any schedule. One final tip – take wellies. The main tourist area of S.Marco is liable to flooding at high water every day.
Just came back from Venice few days ago… the central districts are full of tourist traps without any doubts.
The first day my husband and I took a gondola tour close to Hotel Cavaletto after a quick visit to St. Mark Square ( a bit overcrowded ). The tour was nice but very expensive and quite short.
We went then to Murano on the afternoon, using the vaporetti line 4.1 : the atmosphere there was better than the central square and the “glass shopping” afternoon was quite nice.
We came back to Piazzale Roma and eat something at the Jewish Ghetto at the Kosher restaurant Gam Gam (nothing special).
Our second day in Venice was all about Biennale (modern art) and the Burano island.
Burano has been one of the best places I visited in Venice, an island with many colored buildings and a magic atmosphere, we spent the whole evening there until 9pm.
The third day was quite different from the others, as we decided to book a wine tour to sample tapas and wines in different bars of Venice. After a long research on the web we booked a tour that came highly recommended (the webpage is venicewinetour. com ). This is not the typical tour you could find in Venice, it’s very intimate, limitated to little groups and gives you the chance to avoid many tourist traps, learning tons about Venice and the italian wines. We felt lucky to close our stay in Venice this way!
Once you are in Venice try to avoid the central areas and try to dedicate more time to the islands or to the less visited districts where just the locals go.
Jessie
Thanks for this post- I wish I had read it before going to Murano. It was very disappointing to realize that the factories there are
Much more expensive.
I knew the salesmen at Vetraria Ducale mark up the prices in order to make it seem like they are giving you a deal. But I was shocked to find the same one I purchased available for a quarter of the price. So now what are my legal rights to cancel the purchase? They charged me 50 percent up front and the balance in 30 days. The receipt says no refund, but is this permissible under Venetian law? I contacted them the same day to say I wanted to cancel and letting them know I found the same item for a fraction of their price.
Thank you for your reply.
That’s good to know about the ice cream! I’m always so attracted by the pretty colours and display of gelato like that, but I’d never thought of it like this :)
The Gondola dinner cruise was not worth it. The meal at Trattoria Sempione was disgusting.
Venice is a tourist trap. Save your money and head for the mountains or some lesser known place. You’ll save a bundle, have a far more enjoyable ride and get to truly see Italy, not some sad tourist filled makeover of what once was.
Great tips for pricey Venice! I’m going to try rowing next time I visit.