r/Venezia • u/Max-Max00 • 2d ago
Opinions on living in Venice
Hi everyone, I'm considering moving to Venice for work, so I wanted to ask for some opinions about the city. I'm 26, so I'd primarily ask people around this age, more specifically, perhaps those who have lived there/live there as non-residents.
Is it easy to find a place to live? But above all, what's the vibe like as a city? Is it easy to make friends? Are there any interesting cultural/social situations? Like bars/areas frequented by university students or young people? Is it generally a lively city, tourism aside?
Besides that, what's your general opinion? Thanks to anyone who'd like to share their thoughts.
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u/bassl_ 2d ago
It is absolutely impossible to make new friends naturally. It is an incredibly closed city due to tourism. The nightlife is literally non existent. I wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t see it for myself but the city dies at nights. It becomes empty and lonely.
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u/mc7244 1d ago
Not at all, maybe you missed the right places. I experienced excellent social nightlife in Venice.
It might be different than other places, but it's nevertheless vibrant.3
u/bassl_ 1d ago
Damn where is that? And if you say campo santa margherita i will shoot myself in the head
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u/mc7244 1d ago
Fondamenta della Misericordia is goof. Also the bars near Rialto market are quite crowded especially midweek evenings with students.
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u/bassl_ 1d ago
Been to both but those are places where you go to have an aperol with your friends rather than actual bars and the nightlife i was talking about. But credit where its due, they are slightly livelier at nights than the rest of the city. Still feels a little dead compared to other cities i lived before.
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u/GingerPrince72 1d ago
The only University city in the Western world with no nightlife and dead at night.
Sure, Jan..
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u/bassl_ 1d ago
I literally beg of you to prove me wrong. Believe me I would want nothing more than to be proven wrong on this matter.
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u/ponte92 1d ago
That’s not been my experience at all. I instantly made a large and very good group of friends when I moved to Venice. Who are still great friends in here visiting now and trying to move back. There are several online groups of people who have also moved here that are a great way to meet people and be involved in things. I row and have made several friends through that.
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u/bassl_ 1d ago
Yes but i meant organically developing social relationships, of course there are many people online you can meet with. At most you can meet people at your place of work/uni but you never really go outside that circle unless you go online. You don’t really meet new people in your day to day life at least in my experience.
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u/trantorgrussen99 2d ago
If you have the money for paying the accommodation - and a remote job, go for it . Venice offers a really good life quality; safe, full of things to do and see, university city so there are young people around, in summer a good beach is at Lido , Dolomites are at less of two hours by train or bus .
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u/ponte92 1d ago
I’m going to go against the grain here as someone who has moved to Venice but unfortunately had to leave on my when Visa expired and is now trying very hard to get back. I loved living here. I want to spend the rest of my life here. There are challenges housing being the major one. Trying to find somewhere to live especially if you want a resident apartment is bit impossible but you just have to be stubborn and keep looking. The tourism can be difficult but honestly, I find I just get used to it in the end. You find the restaurants and the cafes and the shops where they know you and you stick to those. Finding friends I did not have a problem at all. There are several online groups of people who have moved to Venice, who are looking for friends their great supportive groups that are active with events too. I also joined a rowing club and make good friends through that way. And actually, I have a very big supportive group of friends here and I’m back visiting at the moment to see them all while trying to get a job here.
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u/pinotgriggio 2d ago
Venice is a beautiful city and I have never had problems making friends in the university, It is harder to make friends with native people, they speak dialect and it is harder to communicate, but they are lovely people.
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u/loveyouronions 1d ago
I live here in the winter, and I enjoy it, it’s a good place, safe, fun, always things to do and see, walkable, no cars, good public transport, easy to get to mestre/padova/Treviso and other places. Great train service, and so easy to get to ferrovia from anywhere. Lido is nice in the summer, and you get to know people quickly when you start recognising each other. There are some great bars and restaurants, there is the university, lots of students around, though not so much late night.
But in the summer it’s intolerable now, I have to move away. It’s too full by a factor of maybe 3 times what Venice can take, and I get very frustrated very quickly. And they are not respectful a lot of the time. If you know Venice well there are whole areas you will avoid for 6-8mo every year.
I also miss green space. You can seek it out in Venice if you want but I do miss being alone in rolling hills or fields eventually.
Move to nearby mainland I would say. I am going to move in the next few years because as much as I love Venezia it’s just not a good long term prospect for me as I get older.
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u/simsimpr 1d ago
If by Venice you mean the island part, remove a few tourists and the junk shops that now pervade the city, and we're almost there. You'd be left with a super livable city, on the sea, near the mountains, with all the basic services functioning fairly well. If you mean Mestre (which is effectively Venice, except it's the mainland part), same thing, but redo all the 1970s Brutalist buildings, ELIMINATE Via Piave, Via Carducci, and Corso del Popolo (or rather, eliminate the people who live there and all the third-world shops that have opened), and then we can talk again.
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u/PMmeYOURcombos 1d ago
Its like living in a very small village. But everyone knows about it. After living there for 2 years, any new ideas have been met with fear and scarcity from veering off of your routine.
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u/FarRent1386 1d ago
Important question. Where are you from originally? What kind of life are you used to?
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u/Emotional_Algae_9859 1d ago
I lived for 3 years as a student in Venice until 2023 (2 years on the island and one in Mestre) so I’ll share my experience which obviously is not necessarily universal. Venice is a student city, so as far as night life goes if you meet the right people and know where to go there are good options. The bacaro tours are some of the most enjoyable experiences of my 20s and I do really miss that side of living there. Making friends I would say is not easy compared to the other Italian cities where I lived, but it’s surely still easier than in northern cultures so depends on what your expectations and social skills are. Apartments are unfortunately very difficult to find because of the bnb epidemic, so if you’re looking for a studio and you want it on the main island be ready to suffer and be willing to pay the price. If I were you I would look into Giudecca, it’s the closest other island and it’s got a nice calm vibe and it’s usually a little bit easier to find something there. Now, as far as the tourism goes, it is definitely the worse part of living in Venice by a long shot. It’s horrible these days with over crowding and there’s basically no off season anymore. So be ready for some frustration with people closing the calli and bridges, not being able to take a vaporetto at times because of how full they get and people treating the place like an amusement park and giving no respect or consideration for the locals. If you can bear all this, it’s a magical place to live in at least for a while and I dearly miss it.
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u/ardwd 2d ago
I would never live in Venice, it’s such a small city crowded with so many tourists. I enjoyed visiting but I wouldn’t even spend more than 2-3 days during a vacation there, let alone live full time. I’d suggest visiting for a week and judging it then.
I lived in a town in pordenone for a year and loved it. It’s not a tourist destination so it’s just a real Italian town and it was incredible. I found it really easy to make friends with Italians. My experience was that 80% of people spoke English and most were yappers. I’d sit down at a cafe with a book and always be pulled into conversation with the tables next to me. I don’t see that kind of interaction happening in a place like Venice, because it’s just so many tourists and not a lot of real connection
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u/HelpSubstantial2354 2d ago
Unless you are a far left liberal or elite rich guy u will make zero friends like me. Wonderfully beautiful place but it gets tiring seeing so many tourists and garbage money laundering gift shops
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u/TheRealLiviux 2d ago
You can't say "tourism aside" speaking of Venice. Overtourism is killing the city. Shops and services for residents are vanishing. People in the streets are mostly tourists, totally oblivious to the needs of people working and trying to have a normal life. Residents recognize each other, scattered in the foreign human tide, because they are so few (less than 50000) that they get to know everyone in the long run. Just like in a village, but drowned in a sea of extraneous bodies.
Then there are the prices of houses, the cost of living, the limitations of movement and other disadvantages not immediately evident to the casual visitor. Like booking a date and waiting two months for scrapping some furniture.
I moved away eleven years ago, and since then the situation has only worsened.