The much-loved European city break where wine is cheaper than water – and flights cost £15
THERE’S a city in Europe where wine is said to be cheaper than water, and flights can be snapped up for less than £20.
TikTok user and travel influencer Kacie Rose recently posted a video about some hidden pieces of history in Venice.
In the video, she said: “So in Venice, and pretty much all over Italy, there are a lot of pieces of hidden history.
“You might just walk past them because nobody is there to tell you about them.”
In the next clip, the travel influencer took users to the heart of Venice, where she gave a short lesson in Italian history.
She added: “As you walk through some of the bigger squares and courtyards in Venice, you can see these white squares all over the ground with holes in them.
“You might think they’re drains or something, but actually they all lead to a massive underground cistern that covers almost the entirety of the square.
“[While] the cylinder things that you see in the middle are actually wells.
“It was once said that Venice was in the water and yet it has no water, and that’s because drinking fresh drinkable water in Venice was super difficult back in the day, so they used these cisterns to collect rainwater.”
According to the TikTok user, there were more than 6,000 cisterns in the city at one point.
A caption under the video listed even more facts, it read: “It’s also why wine was cheaper than water.”
The video has already had 23,000 views on the social media platform, with users describing the information as “interesting” and asking for more secrets to be revealed.
When I first visited Venice as a student back in 2014, my friend and I quickly discovered that alcoholic drinks in restaurants were less expensive than water.
Every time we stopped at a restaurant, we made sure to order ourselves a glass of Aperol Spritz – because it helped to spread our shoestring budget a little further.
Nearly a decade later, in many restaurants, it seems that wine is still cheaper than water.
Last year, a Reddit user posted a picture of a menu in Venice, which listed the price of beverages.
Among the eye-watering prices, a bottle of water was priced at €7, while other soft drinks retailed at €10.
In the comments, many users were quick to point out that the tourists were paying for the view, because the restaurant was situated in Saint Mark’s Square.
One person added: “Don’t forget one glass of wine costs €1/€1.5, and it’s literally among the cheapest prices in all of Europe.
“Yeah it’s cheap wine, but it’s a nice Venice tradition, you just need to literally look around the corners, it’s full of cheap places.”
These €1 glasses of wine are called vino sfuso, which is also known as house wine.
While house wines have a bad reputation in some parts of the world, they’re used by locals in Venice as a pick-me-up throughout the day.
For the cheapest glass of wine, make sure to order an Ombra, which can be ordered in any good bar or wine shop.
According to Hikers Bay, a website that lists the cost of food and drink in destinations across the world, a bottle of water costs €1.30 in restaurants in Venice.
While wine is still cheaper than water in some spots, there are ways to bring the cost of water down too.
One of those is by purchasing water bottles for as little as 20 cents in Italian supermarkets or refilling bottles at water fountains.
Ryanair and Wizz Air operate direct flights from the UK to Venice, with prices starting from as little as £14 for a one-way ticket.
Meanwhile, a stunning island has been declared “best in the Med”, and it has over 300 beaches and it’s only three hours away.
This tiny UK town has been compared to a stunning Italian island.