Venice ideas... go!

January 2, 2008 7:12 PM

How could one best enjoy the Venice carnivale?

Looking for past experiences and fun ideas. The only thing i seem to imagine it as is one big pub crawl, or maybe just generally exploring the city all dressed up like. What do people actually do, besides stand around all baroquesquelike?

posted by Kudos to Travel & Transportation around Venice, Italy (3 answers total)

My friends and I (20-something girls) spent the day in Venice for Carnivale and it was chaos. People were everywhere and we just went with the crowd and walked around the city. We did the general touristy stuff like the Rialto, Piazza San Marco, gondola ride, etc. There was a parade in the evening, then we caught the train back. I imagine that it turned into a party that night, but Venice seems so pristine and antiquated that I can't imagine us doing a bar crawl there.
posted by LiveToEat at 8:08 PM on January 2, 2008

At night, in the student-y areas (Dorsoduro), there are pub crawls and people selling mulled wine on the street. It's one of the few times of year that Venice stays open past 10pm.
posted by occhiblu at 9:21 PM on January 2, 2008

I was in Venice on my own for Carnevale last year, completely by accident and with absolutely no money. I basically spent the time wandering through random streets, watching dressed up people and gondolas. I arrived as the grand parade finished, at Venice train station (on the islands), so didn't see that, but there were free programs and tons of events on - it's an arts festival, essentially, with a ton of private/for-pay events, but also lots of public street theatre things, such as puppet shows outside San Marco, kids shows all over the place, etc. Many of the costumed people you see around San Marco are in fact busking, and expect payment in exchange for photos with them, but it's still cool to look at (and some of them seem to be doing it just for the ego boost of attention). If I had had friends with me I would totally have dressed up and wandered around, but I'm too scared to do that on my own, and the locals who do it are SERIOUSLY dressed up, so it deserves some real effort behind the costume. It seemed fairly quiet the one night I stuck around the islands (I stayed at Camping something something, a fair way out but nice and cheap), but quiet as in Not a Party, still with plenty of people strolling around and delicious pizza shops open (hint: pizza price is inversely correlated with distance from the train station/San Marco).
posted by jacalata at 5:11 AM on January 3, 2008