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Venice

Venice-Arriving in Venice

Main page Venice

When to visit 

First
impressions

Arriving in
Venice

Bargaining in Venice

Hire gondole cheap

Eating Venice and wine bars

hotel recommendations

Fenice opera house

Charm pensioni

Acqua alta

By train you arrive at station VENEZIA SANTA LUCIA tel 041-238-1560. Be careful not to leave at Venezia Mestre!. The Santa Lucia station is in the city itself, right on the Grand Canal. You are ion the ambience right away! 1/ 4 h from Rialto bridge and 30 minutes from piazza San Marco if you take a vaporetto. No. 1 has a lot of stops. No. 82 is more direct.
By plane, you land on airport Marco Polo, on mainland at Tessera. Count 20 min by bus (ACTV orange bus no. 5 every 30 minutes, ticket 1,500 LIT with several stops or ATVO blue bus direct connection, 5,000 LIT). You can also join Venice by boat, vaporetto line Alilaguna, at the airport in 1 hour, departure each hour, ticket 17,000 LIT. It is much more expensive off course but a great and impressive arrival at the piazza San Marco! A taxi from the airport to Venice costs 100,000 LIT, quite expensive isn’t it?
By car, it’s hell, it’s the worst to do. First of all because the bridge of Liberty connecting mainland to Venice is constantly jammed (like the Champs Elysees about 18.00). Second: parking is very expensive. The less expensive is in front of the Mestre station (viale stazione no.2) or look for a spot around the viale San Marco (near the station) at Mestre. From there you need to take a bus or train to Venice. (every 10 minutes from Mestre to Santa Lucia)
Another one is the parking “Tronchetto” (paying), by taking the Liberty Bridge, just before arriving in Venice, follows the arrows “Tronchetto” to the right. The car will be in open air and you have always the risk to come back and find out your car radio and your wheels are missing…..
Jack-travel can help you from here but it is always safer ;-) to pay a visit to one of the numerous tourist offices: --San Marco, Palazzina del Santi, tel 0415226356  fax 0415298730 10.00-12.00  14.00-16.00---San Marco, 71/c (Piazza San Marco), tel 0415208964 9.30-17.30—Station Santa Lucia, tel 0415298727 fax 041719078—airport Marco Polo, tel and fax 0415415887. You can get maps (very approximate), museum schedules, temporary exhibitions, hotel lists (but no reservation)
Next article I‘ll explain how to hire a not overpriced gondola.