Day trips from Venice are available in several ways, with local businesses dedicated to offering you the best care and various options, from three or four hour excursions to all day trips.
Of the day trips, my favorite is a (Trenitalia train) visit to Verona.
Verona, which is known as the city of Romeo and Juliet, has countless testimonies of its past with Romanesque and Renaissance architecture buildings.
Naturally, however, one of the most visited sites in the city is the famous House of Juliet, with a courtyard that has the famous Juliet’s balcony.
In addition to the Juliet House and balcony, Verona has a beautiful historical center and many museums, churches, palaces, and city bridges, and a great variety of Italian culture to explore.
PHOTO: Juliet’s Balcony in Verona.
Another alternative day trip destination from Venice is Padua, forty kilometers west of the city.
Padua is the main shopping center and communications hub of the Italian region of Veneto, where some of the tourist attractions include monumental square Prato della Valle, Chapel of Scrovegni, Palazzo della Ragione, and the Basilica of San Antonio (which houses the body of St. Anthony of Padua).
Lake Garda, on the other hand, is located halfway between the cities of Milan and Venice, and contains the largest lake in Italy: 50+ km long and 17+ km wide.
Part of Lake Garda’s comes from its many charming villages on the banks of the lake, such as Malcesine and Riva del Garda.
More nearby, Lido is a great alternative day trip from the historical city center of Venice where you can get to using Venice’s water buses, vaporettos.
Lido is an major island near the city of Venice, which has had since the early twentieth century some of the main beaches in Italy.
The urban layout of Lido is much more conventional than that of Venice, with cars and buses available (to Chioggia and elsewhere). However, the most practical way to reach the place is to board a vaporetto from Venice (Vaporetto line 1, for example).
If you don’t want to leave the historical city center of Venice for a day trip, you can always hire an English language tour guide to take you to the most exciting places within Venice for a day, such as the Basilica of San Marco, Grand Canal, Doge’s Palace, St. Mark’s Square, and the Bridge of Sighs.