After we booked our trip to Venice, the first thing I did was start researching where to eat, which was harder than originally thought. With any touristy city, you can easily fall into the trap of overpriced Italian food that isn't as authentic as you'd like, so I thought I'd share everywhere we ate that we'd recommend...

On our first night, we headed to De Pisis restaurant terrace which is part of the Bauer hotel. It's an upscale restaurant with a wine list and view to die for. We happily munched away on our three course meal while watching all of the gondolas go past us heading towards the Grand Canal. It's pretty expensive, but worth it for a special occasion, or if you'd just like to treat yourself on holiday! After dinner, definitely head up to the hotels rooftop bar - it's a hidden gem we didn't find on any of the blogs or travel sites and has amazing views of Venice's key sights. We only found out about it from a guest in the hotel and it was relatively quiet, so head up here to watch the sunset with a Bellini! 

Another more boujie meal we had was at the Gritti Terrace, this one is instagram famous and we can see why...the views are spectacular and everything in the restaurant was just so lovely. The food was good and I have absolutely no complaints but you are mostly paying for the view with this one, the food wasn't as creative or varied as the De Pisis restaurant and the view was pretty similar. 

The next night we found ourselves craving pizza, which is surprisingly hard to find in Venice. The city isn't known for its pizza, as it banned wood fired ovens due to fire concerns, however the pizza we had at Rossopomodoro was great. The restaurant is cheap and cheerful, but in a great spot for people watching just behind St Marks Square. It's also located just across a glass making shop where they had a man doing live glass making while you eat, so definitely sit outside if you can! He made us a tiny glass animal of our choice after dinner for just 10 Euros - such a special souvenir! 

On our last night we went somewhere near our hotel as we were quite exhausted from all the walking and hadn't booked anywhere and it turned out to be an excellent meal. We ate at Ristorante Al Colimbo de l'Opera and as it was our last meal, treated ourselves to a bellini, an excellent starter and I had the carbonara which came complete with parmesan crisp. It's tucked in a quiet side street so perfect for a chilled out evening meal. 

If you're on the hunt for a sweet treat while wandering, definitely stop off at SuSo Gelato. They have so many flavours - the passionfruit yoghurt was particularly good. There's also a pretty bridge right next to the gelato shop, perfect for taking a snap!  

Drop any other reccomendations in the comments! x

It's difficult to take a bad photo in Venice, almost every street you turn down will be pretty, and the canals running through the island offer up countless opportunities for that perfect gondola shot. However, as with all things, some spots are better than others, so I've rounded up some of my favourite places to get that perfect shot for the gram in Venice...

Canals 

As I said, the canals running through the city offer up so many golden photo opportunities. If you want to get the perfect shot though, I'd wait until the city has woken up a little...there will be more gondolas about and the service boats like parcel deliveries and the bin man will have moved on. 

While we were there we also found the instagram dock right by our hotel, so we popped down after 4pm once the DHL boats had gone on their merry way to get a little snap. You can find the exact location here. 

Rialto Bridge

The Rialto Bridge was probably the busiest place we visited in Venice, its a tourist hotspot, but one not to miss. The bridge itself offers great photo opportunities, as when you cross the bridge you can see right down the grand canal, it also offers great sunset views so it's worth heading down for sunset while you're there. 

If you want a photo with the bridge itself in the background, I'd recommend crossing the bridge to the Palazzo Dei Camerlenghi and if you walk to the canal there's a little viewing point of the bridge which offers you a great view of the whole bridge.  

Bridge of Sighs

I think the Bridge of Sighs is one of the prettiest bridges in Venice. It's just off St Marks Square and can be seen from multiple bridges looking onto it. I think the Ponte della Paglia is the best spot to take a photo though, as it looks on to the iconic canals instead of onto the lagoon. There's also a little photo spot a few steps away from the Ponte della Paglia which not many people seemed that bothered about while we were there, so a great way to get a photo without other tourists in the background! 

Bauer Rooftop Bar

We stumbled across this bar by accident after eating in the restaurant downstairs (more on where we ate in Venice here). It does an excellent Bellini and offers a great panoramic view of Venice. Head here at sunset for a stunning view! 

Gondola

You can't visit Venice and not take a ride on a gondola! We booked a private gondola to take us round a few of the canals and then down the grand canal so we could get both views. It was pricey and you can do it cheaper by sharing a gondola, but it was worth it to do something special we couldn't do elsewhere. 

SuSo Gelato 

Italy is famous for its gelato, and for good reason...its delicious. SuSo gelato is probably the prettiest in Venice, and they have a great array of flavours too. I went for a passionfruit yogurt and watermelon flavour and we also got a pistachio and strawberry one too. There's a pretty bridge right next to the gelato shop, so head there to get that iconic shot! 

Burano - The rainbow island!

If you're in Venice for more than a day, you should definitely pay Burano a visit. It's about 40 mins by ferry from Venice, and you'll be greeted by a whole island full of colourful houses - the instagram opportunities are endless! For more on visiting Burano, click here. 

Where are your favourite photo spots in Venice?

If you're planning on visiting Venice for more than a day trip, I'd really recommend you take a look at doing a day visiting some of the islands - particularly Burano. It was one of my favourite days from our trip and the rainbow island is definitely not to be missed! 

Getting to Murano and Burano

To get to Murano and Burano you have a few options, you can book a private tour which will take you to both islands, but they usually mean you're on someone else's timetable, take a water taxi which can be costly, or you can take the public 'water bus'. 

To catch the ferry to Murano and Burano, you need to head to Fondamente Nove and catch line 12. It will take you around 10 mins to get to Murano and about 30-40 mins from there to Burano.

As we were going to both islands, we purchased a day ticket for around 20 euros which allowed us to hop on and off as much as we liked. 

Murano

As we had a lunch booking in Burano and it was still fairly early, we headed to Murano first for a wander around and to shop for some glass souvenirs. Murano is fairly small, and it looks a lot like Venice, so we didn't feel like we needed super long here. It's definitely worth stopping off if you're on your way to Burano, but I wouldn't plan my day around it. 

Apart from more pretty canals and buildings, there's also a glass making factory that you can visit, and lots of glass shops which we loved wandering around. I picked up two glasses to add to my cocktail glass collection - they were quite pricey but it's somewhere I don't think I'd visit again so worth it to me to have some Murano glass that I actually purchased in Murano, instead of going to Anthopologie like usual! 

After we were all shopped out we headed to the ferry port to continue our journey to Burano. This was at about 12pm and the ferry was very busy, they only run every 30 mins and we didn't think we'd be able to get on the first one leaving...we did but we were packed in like sardines, which isn't great when its over 30 degrees outside! So remember to take plenty of water with you. 

Burano

When we got to Burano we were really excited, the whole island is beautiful and unlike anywhere we'd been before. The colourful houses are so fun and the whole island has really gone for it with the bright colours...Notting Hill who?! 

We hopped off the ferry and immediately headed for the back streets. Burano is much quieter than Venice but the back streets are pretty much deserted so you can wander around at a slower pace and really take it all in - it's also great for getting a photo without hoards of people in the background. 

We then headed down the main canal on the island, which will take you to Tre Ponti or 'three bridges'. It's technically one bridge but it's split into three and offers up some of the best views of Burano's pretty streets. 

After having a wander around, we headed to Trattoria Al Gatto Nero for lunch. We'd booked this weeks in advance as we'd heard it was the most popular restaurant on the island (there's not many either so be sure to book somewhere!) and we didn't want to miss out. It was probably one of our favourite meals of the trip, the staff were so nice, and we were greeted with a great seat for people watching and a complimentary glass of Prosecco! The food was also incredible, I had the best spaghetti bolognese of my life (Burano is a fishing island but I'm not keen on seafood if you're questioning how authentic my meal choice was!) and they also de-boned the fish we ordered infront of us while chatting away. 

After we'd thoroughly enjoyed lunch, we headed over the bridge to see the other side of the canal and stopped off for gelato at Gelateria Crema which was also amazing, I had a black cherry flavour scoop and it was one of the best ice creams I think I've ever had. 

Overall, I think this was one of our favourite days on our short trip to Venice and I'm so glad I didn't give it a miss.