Venice: know before you go

Most visitors land at Venice Marco Polo, on the mainland at Tessera. The airport sits outside the historic centre, so the last stretch is a bus to Piazzale Roma or a boat to a central pier. Budget airlines more often use Treviso's Canova airport, with direct coaches into the city. Intercity trains arrive at Venezia Santa Lucia on the Grand Canal, while cars, coaches, and airport buses stop at Piazzale Roma, the end of the road. From either point Venice moves by boat or on foot.

Venice runs on feet and boats; no cars enter the historic centre. The vaporetto is the city's water bus, and a single 75 minute ticket costs €9.50. If you plan two or more boat rides in a day, a pass is cheaper, and you validate it every time you board, including when you change lines. Traghetti, the two oar gondola ferries, cross the Grand Canal at a few points, and water taxis are fast but costly. Walking is the default; distances look short until you meet the bridges.

Venice adds a nightly tourist tax to your bill, collected by the hotel or host. The day visitor access fee that ran as a trial in recent years is not currently in force. Cards are accepted in most hotels, restaurants, and shops, but small bacari and market stalls may prefer cash, so carry a little.

Venice is safe in the way of a busy city; the main risks are pickpockets and tides. Keep your phone and wallet zipped on crowded vaporettos and in the crush around San Marco and Rialto. In the cooler months, acqua alta can flood low streets, and the city publishes tide forecasts in advance. Never wade or swim in the canals, which carry boat traffic.

Venice's tap water is safe to drink and public fountains are everywhere, so bring a refillable bottle. Summers are hot and humid; carry water, rest in the shade, and remember that many churches stay cool. Pharmacies, signed with a green cross, handle everyday needs, and mosquitoes are a summer nuisance worth repellent.

Mobile signal works across the city, though GPS wanders in the narrow lanes. Download offline maps and the AVM Venezia Official App before you arrive; the app sells and validates vaporetto tickets from your phone. Wi-Fi is reliable in hotels but patchy in public, so do not plan navigation around it.

Venice is a small, lived in city, and you are walking through real streets, not a theme park. Walk on the right, step aside to check a map rather than stopping on a bridge, and keep noise down in the lanes at night. Do not sit or picnic on church steps or monuments, do not feed the pigeons, and cover shoulders and knees inside churches.

Italian is the working language, and Venetian, the city's own language, still colors signs and menus. English is common in tourism and on the vaporetto, less so in residential shops and the outer islands. A buongiorno on entering and a grazie after paying go a long way; learning un caffè and quanto costa covers most of what a visitor needs at a bar.

Venice is hard going for wheelchairs and anyone with limited mobility because the city is joined by stepped bridges. Some routes are bridge free, and major vaporetto stops offer assisted boarding, but plan ahead rather than improvising. During high water the raised walkways help some pedestrians and complicate things for others.

Carnival fills February with masks and crowds, and the Redentore brings fireworks to the Giudecca in July. The Vogalonga sends hundreds of rowed boats across the lagoon in spring, while the art and architecture Biennales run across alternating years and the Film Festival takes over the Lido in late summer. Sights keep shorter hours on national holidays, and high water is most common from autumn through early spring.

Book the headline sights before you fly, especially between spring and autumn. St Mark's Basilica is free to enter but the queue is long; reserve a timed slot and pay separately for the Pala d'Oro, the treasury, and the museum if you want them. The Doge's Palace, the Campanile, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, and the Accademia sell timed tickets online, and they sell out in high season. Book dinner reservations too, since the good small rooms fill fast.