Lickie Loo

First of all, here's the map of all these locations (starting with the train station, where I got into Venice from.) It's a pretty nice loop! I was able to go to all of these in a day by walking.

When you get off the train they actually make you pay a fee of €10 on the weekend to get into the city; so if you go make sure you're prepared!

Campo Dei Frari, where the Argon building is in VEN is the first stop. It's in the heart of Venice, so there's a lot of cool sites around (although that's probably true for everywhere.) When I was there, I didn't find a big piazza like that portrayed in the game, but a relatively small area that was mainly taken up by a church. The photo above was around the corner and was the closest looking location to Antonio Fango's office that I could find in Campo Dei Frari.

The second location is Campo San Polo, where the night club that has Nancy dancing for a hand full of euros is located. In real life, I believe these are just houses, rather than businesses (and there certainly is no night club.) This is definitely one of the most accurate locations out of everywhere on this list, but there's unfortunately not much to do.

The next location is the Rialto Market! When I was there, there was actually a wine festival happening (something I could never imagine HeR including! lol.) The market is definitely bigger (and busier) than what was put in the game and there were no flowers or gelato to sell/buy. Maybe when there this event isn't happening they have flowers or something similar for sale. However, I did get some lemon creme liquor, so not all is lost.

Doge Palace! Okay... maybe this is cheating because it's not actually seen in the game... but it's genuinely one of the most beautiful buildings I've ever seen. I included it in this post because it is also a victim of the phantom as their sword gets stolen prior to the events of the game. I would recommend in general if you are visiting Venice. Plus... the next location is right next to it. FYI, it cost me €25 (and I think that was with a student discount.)

Piazza San Marco is just outside of the doge palace. This is where the ATM that Nancy gets her information is located! In real life, there's no ATM, and to be honest, I was kind of confused what angle we're looking at it in the game. In the screenshot from VEN, this is clearly the building we're looking at (based on the arches and the brick tower,) but it obviously does look a bit different. Overall though, this is one of the most accurate locations; the pigeons and magazine stand you can see on the right were just the cherries on top.

Lastly is Campo Santa Margarita, where we play scopa with Enrico Tazza. Nothing in this Piazza really looked like Casa Dei Giochi unfortunately, but there were a few nice locations to play scopa at, as there were a few restaurants and shady benches.

Speaking of scopa, I had actually tried to get a scopa deck while in Venice but came up empty handed! I even went to a store with 'game' in the title and they only sold t-shirts. I was very disappointed. However, while I'm in Italy I actually visited Florence as well and got a scopa deck at a store called Stratagemma, which I would recommend if you are in the area. However, I did get a Venetian mask similar to Enrico's while in Venice.

I don't believe the location of Margarita's apartment exists in real life, but I did find this apartment which reminded me of it. This was right next to one of the water ways. There are places all over like this there!

Don't hate me but... I did not do a gondola ride. In VEN, gondola rides are not that expensive, but in real life, it costs €90 which is ~$103! Because it was just myself (so I didn't have anyone to split the price with) it didn't feel worth it to me. Very beautiful though! I found it interesting everywhere had the same prices, even if they have different types of boats.

Some other photos I took that reminded me of Phantom of Venice:

hm. interesting. all right, the game demands I do the alchemy puzzle. that's fine, I guess.

so ofc I go back and do just that. and try to leave again.

but here's nancy, once again:

at this point I was like, hm, okay, maybe I overlooked sth else in the alchemy lab? I proceed to painstakingly go through the walkthrough and do everything it asks, but... no dice.

so I thought, okay, maybe I'll try doing the alchemy puzzle again. can't hurt to try!

which led to something incredible.

exhibit a: please note the lack of a stone under that there dome

exhibit b: no stone to retrieve, making nancy look mildly insane.

so I thought, okay, kinda weird, but all right. the game is confused.

then I pulled back and noticed... there was a stone. hovering in mid-air right in front of nancy.

naturally, I immediately grab it, utterly baffled at this glitch, thinking that it wouldn't allow me to interact with it, or that it would disappear if I tried.

NOT SO

nancy is now the proud owner of not one, but two lock combination stones!

now, I immediately thought, my god, I could create the funniest inventory possible here and just fill it up with lock combination stones. unfortunately, it ends up not giving you anything after you have two, which was profoundly disappointing.

anyway, all that to say that it still won't let me leave the alchemy lab and my last save is several hours back :)