Venice + Veneto in 3 Days on a Budget (With Costs)
Three days: one landing day, two Veneto trips
Three days upgrades the 2-day plan with a second full day trip: Padua’s Scrovegni Chapel stays Day 2, and Verona’s Arena joins as Day 3, both under an hour from Venice by regional train. It’s the same spine as the shorter version, just one day longer, and it nests into the 4-day and 5-day plans if your trip stretches further.
Book these before you go
- Book the Scrovegni Chapel timed slot first; there are no same-day daytime bookings.
- Book a Verona day trip if you’d rather not plan the train connections yourself.
- Check Venice or Padua hotel rates before picking your base for all three nights.
| Day | Focus | Distance/train time | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Day 1 | Land, settle in Venice or Padua | - | Room rate varies |
| Day 2 | Padua: Scrovegni Chapel + old town | 25-30 min / EUR 2-9 | Chapel ticket ~EUR 15-16 |
| Day 3 | Verona: Arena + Piazza Erbe | ~54-60 min / EUR 4-12 | Arena ticket ~EUR 12 |
Day 1: land, settle in, keep it cheap
Arrive and get to your room; Venice puts you closest to Santa Lucia station, while Padua or Mestre costs less and still keeps both day trips under an hour. Spend the evening free: a walk near the water, an early dinner, and an early night ahead of tomorrow’s timed chapel slot.
Day 2: Padua on the Scrovegni Chapel’s clock
The Scrovegni Chapel visit runs a strict 15-20 minutes after a mandatory anteroom wait, so build the day around your booked time rather than the other way around. Full price runs about EUR 15 plus a EUR 1 presale fee, reduced around EUR 6 plus EUR 1. Afterward, Prato della Valle and the Palazzo della Ragione cost nothing to walk past, and the regional train back runs as little as EUR 2-9.
Day 3: Verona, the Arena over the balcony
Verona sits about an hour out, fares from roughly EUR 4 on a slow regionale up to EUR 12 on a faster connection. The Arena’s daytime ticket runs about EUR 12 (EUR 9 for seniors, EUR 3 for EU visitors 18-24), open Tuesday to Sunday 8:30am-7:30pm and Monday 1:30pm-7:30pm, details at arena.it . Skip Casa di Giulietta, the manufactured 20th-century balcony attraction, and spend that time on Piazza delle Erbe instead, which costs nothing to wander.
Is Padua or Verona the better day trip to do first?
Padua, because it’s shorter, cheaper, and the Scrovegni booking is the one non-negotiable reservation on this whole itinerary. Doing it on Day 2 while you’re still fresh also means a missed or delayed train doesn’t cost you the harder-to-recover Verona day.
Do these two day trips need a rental car?
No: both run on the same Venice-Padua-Verona regional rail line, with departures frequent enough that you don’t need to plan around a fixed schedule the way the Dolomites or Prosecco trips (covered in the longer versions of this itinerary) require.
Book the Scrovegni slot the moment your three dates are fixed; the Verona train and the Arena ticket can both be sorted the same week you travel.