The gondola ride: what it costs, how long it lasts, and whether to book it inside a tour

A gondola is not transport. It is slower than walking, it does not go where you want, and the routes are short. What it is, done properly, is the only way to be down at water level in the small canals, which is a completely different Venice from the one on the bridges.

The rate is fixed by the city and posted, which removes most of the anxiety: there is a daytime rate and a higher evening one, and gondoliers are not free to invent a number. What varies is the route, the hour, and whether you end up on a busy stretch or a quiet one.

It is charged per gondola, not per person. Up to five people can share one boat for the same money, which changes the arithmetic completely: it is expensive for two and entirely reasonable for four or five.

And the thing nobody tells you: the good part is the side canals, not the Grand Canal. On the Grand Canal you are a small wooden boat among vaporetti and delivery barges. Three turns off it you are in a silent green corridor with washing overhead, which is what people actually remember.

If the gondola is not in the budget, Venice has two substitutes and locals use both.

The traghetto. At several points along the Grand Canal, where there is no bridge for half a kilometre, a stripped-down gondola ferries people across. It costs a couple of euros, it takes two minutes, and it is a real gondola crossing the Grand Canal. Venetians stand up for the crossing; visitors are welcome to sit.

The number 1 vaporetto. The slow water bus that stops everywhere along the Grand Canal from the station to San Marco. For the price of a single fare you get the entire canal, every palace on both banks, from the water. Sit outside at the front if you can, and go at dusk.

Neither replaces the silence of a side canal at seven in the morning. Both cost almost nothing and both are better than not being on the water at all.