Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - Help! Venice seems so expensive!

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Help! Venice seems so expensive!

We'll be in Venice for 6 nights the first week of September for our honeymoon, but I'm getting a bit scared by all the stuff I'm reading about how expensive it is. We booked an apartment for 5 nights through venicerentals, and are staying in a hotel our last night to watch the Regata Historica. The prices I'm seeing for restaurants seem extremely high. Are there affordable ways to eat in Venice? How much should we expect to spend per day for meals? With the apartment, we can definitely cook some of our own meals, but is grocery also very expensive? Thanks for any help with this.

Alla Fontanella Giorgini Alessandro is the owner. http://www.allafontanella.com I like the old web site with the menu http://www.heraclea.it/alla_fontanella/ Let's do a check… Website and menu only in Italian Twenty years at the same location - in Venice yet. 3 - 10 Euro for a plate of food. For us, it's perfect. Ae Oche Santa Croce, 1552 a/b 041. 524. 1161 Campo S. Giacomo Dell 'Orio Pizza served on one side and on the other a great inexpensive local restaurant. In the same Campo as the restaurant, Ae Oche, the Campo S. Giacomo Dell 'Orio, has an inexpensive Co-op market, (grocery store) There's always italian bread with Prosciutto di Parma washed down with some wine. I'd love to "settle" for that meal.

Get away from P. San Marco, the Rialto, and daytrippers' alley, and you can find inexpensive places aplenty. Bars put out great inexpensive sandwiches for lunch. You can go to a market and put together a picnic. There are a lot of reasonable options besides formal sit down restaurants. You just have to be willing to get away from the pack.

Especially with an apartment you'll be able to have convenient and reasonable light meals and snacks. A bottle of white wine from the local wine shop was very reasonable (I even got one cold and opened for me by the gracious owner). Food from the grocery store was not expensive (but it was a bit difficult to find the grocery store in my neighborhood as it was not clearly marked... look for old women with empty rolling baskets and follow them!) It's the fancy dinnerwn restaurants that you read about in guidebooks that are very expensive. Food at the sidewalk cafes and standup bars all over town are fun and fine... have a coffee and pastry, or a glass of wine and pre-made sandwich. Save eating dinner out for only a couple special evenings and you'll be fine.

Had I never stayed on Lido (and this is not a recommendation to stay there), I might ahve never sen the full service (but still small) grocery store, located just about three blocks from the main vaporetto stop there. I'm sure that there are others, but this a great little place. Best wishes, Rex [email protected]

Check out the neighborhood Santa Margherita. It has open air markets for fish and vegetables. You might also check out the Rialto Market in the early mornings. The fish market in the Rialto is closed on Mondays. There are affordable ways to eat in Venice and actually it is really preferable. Many of the high end places charge alot of money for (IMHO) not particularly good food.

Agree with the poster who suggested Ae Oche. I had a great pizza of brie,speck and arugala there for 6 euros. It was big enough for two people. I liked San Croce as a neighborhood to poke around in.

You'll also save money in Venice over other destinations on sights. Aside from Doges Palace many things are free. The whole city is a museum and you can walk forever. You can take the Number 1 vaporetto instead of a Gondola and see the entire Grand Canal. You can see great art in every church. Don't panic, you'll be fine and most of all you made the right choice. Venice is the most beautiful, romantic city in the world. And to be able to see the Regata Historica--magic. Enjoy.

Some more ideas to keep restaurant tabs down in Venice(most work in any city) >Eat main meal at lunch (always less than dinner) >Share courses >Have pasta as main course >Skip dessert & get gelato on the street >order wine by carafe or 1/2 carafe (order only local Veneto wine-very good & cheap) >Eat breakfast in apt >Look for restaurants with locals >Search off the beaten track >Have picnics You'll love Venice.

Hi Fufujuice, Don't be too scared. Venice is expensive but you can certainly do things on the cheap. We usually ended up being so very busy all day that lunch ended up being such a small consideration that a meat and cheese roll or a little mini pizza ended up being all we really wanted and these were cheap (around 3 Euro each). Coffee also is very cheap as is wine. Beer is dear so unless you really don't like wine (which is very good by the way) stay away from the beer. We found grocery stores however where we could buy beer and wine very, very cheaply and we had these in our hotel room for a tipple while we were getting ready to go out for dinner, or to have with cheese and fruit that we bought when we really couldn't be bothered going out again. Most of the restaurants are expensive - particularly around San Marco, Rialto and Accadamia (the main tourist areas) but if you can get off the beaten track you may find places that are a little more within budget. I really don't like buying food to prepare myself when I'm in another country and half the fun is trying new restaurants - most them have their menus on the door so you can get a fairly good idea of prices before you commit yourself by sitting down. Many have tourist menus which are a set price three course menu and though not particularly recommended for a gourmet night out can help keep you to a budget. Buy a vaporetto pass which allows you to hop on and off as often as you like and will get you to anywhere you want to go in Venice. Gondolas are expensive and there is no way around that but it really is terrific fun. Most places to visit are free and Venice is a walk around city so you will be seeing just about everything without having to pay to see anything. Bottom line was that although Venice was expensive it didn't end up costing us as much as we thought it would, somedays we lashed out on a good restaurant but we more than compensated the next day when we were way too tired to consider more than a bowl of pasta and a glass of wine.

Thanks for all the great tips! Your responses were very helpful, and I'll definitely be taking them with me on the trip.