Gondolas are possibly the most recognisable ‘face’ of Venice, and are associated with romance, style and a touch of the classic Italian way of life. You’ll notice them on the bustling canals of Venice plying their trade,  or  gliding up and down the bustling Grand Canal and along the the quieter side canals.

The origins of the name ‘gondola’ remains an enigma that has tickled the imagination of many a poet and writer. Its history is clsoely interwoven with the development of Venice as a city, and stems from the days when rowing and sail boats were a major form of transport around the island.

The manufacture of a true Venice gondola is an intricate art involving eight different types of wood, almost three hundred individual parts, and special paintwork done by qualified artisans. You’ll recognise them by the golden ‘blade’  capping the prow, and of course the shiny black finishing, which is regulatory. The seating of a gondola can accommodate up to four people (although I’ve seen many more cram into one) and the seating area is a rich decoration of red velvet and gold ornamentation.

The gondoliers vary from ‘true blue’ ones that wear the customary black and white shirt with yellow straw hat, to informal ones that don’t particularly dress up for the job. It’s a good idea to look around before you book your gondola ride for a gondolier that looks like he takes his job seriously. Many of them row (or ‘plug’, as it’s called) very nonchalantly and pass by the vaporetti surprisingly close, causing the gondola to rock to and fro, while all the time maintaining a cell phone conversation and smoking a cigarette! Not the most romantic image, as you can imagine.

While you can customise the length and route of your gondola ride, they generally last about fifty minutes. The cost of a gondola ride is about $80, although this varies considerably according to the time of day and whether it’s peak season or not. Expect to pay extra for things like serenading.

If you’re on a tight budget, you can club together with friends and share a gondola, which makes it considerably cheaper. And if you’re really cash strapped but would still like to get the feel of a gondola, you can settle for a traghetto ride across the Grand Canal. A traghetto is a stripped-down version of a true, full-blown Venice gondola that is commonly used by both tourists and locals to get from one side of the canal to the other, at less than one Euro a ride. While it doesn’t have the bells and whistles of a traditional gondola, it’s still fun, and you’ll have spare cash for dinner and a gelato later on!

I hope the first thing you unpack when you reach Venice will be a map of the city, because believe me, you’re going to need it!

Venice is an ancient city without much discernable structure in its layout and design, since it developed more or less organically and hasn’t changed all that much. It’s made up of seemingly countless alleyways, courtyards, and canals that intersect sometimes at odd angles with lots of cul-de-sacs thrown into the mix. If you intend exploring Venice on foot – and that’s certainly the best way to do it – you’ll need a good map to guide you around the city if you want to avoid getting hopeless lost (getting lost once or twice is fine and adds to the adventure, but after that it gets a bit frustrating…). The other reason for packing a well-designed and informative Venice map before leaving home is that it’ll make your travelling around Venice by Vaporetto (water bus) much easier if yoiu have a map of the different routes at hand, especially as these can be a bit confusing at first.

What to look for in a good Venice map

Does it have a street index? There aren’t many of them, but if you can locate a street map of Venice that also has a street index, that’s an added bonus. The dense streets of Venice making finding a particular street difficult – ask me, I’ve spent ages looking for the street in which my hotel is just after arriving. And it’s not fun doing that at 10pm!

Is it the latest issue? Though the streets in venice won’t change much – if at all – the water bus routes sometimes change, so you need to have a map with up-to-date information on.

Does it identify sightseeing highlights? Having particular museums or monuments that you want to visit on the map makes planning your day trip or sightseeing route much easier. Having them on the map makes locating them so much easier, and could well save you much time and effort.

Don’t skimp, go for a LARGE one. The streets and alleys of venice are incredibly narrow and wind their way around. This means that on many maps the street names are printed extreme small and at weird angles. Walk around Venice early evening and at night and you’ll see countless tourists standing under street lights trying to decipher their maps. This is especially true if you wear glasses or have impaired vision. Rather spend more on a decent size map than skimping and having a hard time trying to read maps.