WHERE TO SHOP
One thing travelers love to do is shopping. Venice definitely has many unique shops and products to purchase, but buying isn't the only reason tourists should spend time shopping. While in Venice, to truly get to know Venetians, and Italians in general, one should spend some time at the places where they do most of their buying. Here you can observe their habits.
Italians, and Venetians aren't any different, love to buy items at the outside, street markets especially fruits and vegetables. Venice's open market is Mercatino San Leonardo, and it's located on Rio Terrà San Leonardo. It's small, but from the early morning hours you can purchase high quality fruits and vegetables.
The other open market in Venice is the fish market. It's located near the Rialto bridge at the Pescheria di Rialto. All fish is bartered under a Venetian style portico, it's very noisy and it's fun to listen to the people speaking the Venetian dialect. Even here you can go early in the morning and already find the stands filled with fresh fish.
Then, if you are interested in seeing what an Italian mall looks like there are two choices. Directly from Piazzale Roma there is free bus service back and forth to these two malls. The first is Panorama, and the second is Carrefour. Panorama, in Marghera, and Carrefour, in Marcon, are the two hypermarkets in the shopping center. The Panorama center has only a few stores. If you want to see more of a selection it's best to go to Carrefour.
If you want to visit the Venetian version of a department store, then the place to go is COIN. The last floor is especially nice, for it has interesting items for the home. It's located at Cannaregio 5787, and they opened a separate store for cosmetics called CoinBeauty located at Campo San Luca.
If you are interested in an upper scale shopping mall, then the place to visit is Le Barche. It's located in Mestre, and just like the other two shopping centers named above you can get a bus from Piazzale Roma.
Grace De Fanti
