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Seeking an interesting rest stop en route Montepulciano to Venice

Seeking an interesting rest stop en route Montepulciano to Venice

Old May 9th, 2014, 07:11 PM
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Seeking an interesting rest stop en route Montepulciano to Venice

Hi all,

On a Friday in early June, we will be driving from Montepulciano to Venice (P. Roma) where we will be turning in our rental cars. Their office is closed 12:30-2pm and I believe the drive from Montepulciano to the rental car turn-in is between 3.5 and 4 hours. We would love to stop somewhere easily accessible by car on the way, trying to time it so that we arrive in Venice after 2pm when the rental desk is open again.

The "kicker" is that we will have our 16 month old and 3.5 yr old sons with us . So... no nice restaurants and I don't want to try a museum after they will be have been confined in the car so much of the day.

My original thought was Ravenna. How accessible is it via car, or would we need to park on the periphery and use public transport into the city? (Trying to avoid that for a short stop). My other thought was Villa Foscari ala Palladio fame, but it is not open to the public on Friday mornings.

Many thanks for any and all suggestions!
Best,
TA
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Old May 10th, 2014, 02:59 AM
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Montepulciano - Venice is 5 hrs by car if you travel along the most direct and boring (and expensive: tolls!) motorways, 6 hrs if you choose a slightly more panoramic route and 9 hrs if you travel on strade statali (much more to see).
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Old May 10th, 2014, 04:08 AM
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Ravenna is the most logical stopping place, as it would be just a little more than half-way, mostly on national roads; the trip would take 4 1/2 to 5 hours.

The route from Ravenna to Venezia follows the SS 309 through the Po Delta, with a lot of scrubby woodlands, some farms, and some wetlands. Another place you might consider as a stopover is Comacchio, an attractive little town on the Po Delta. Comacchio is famous for its eels, a taste I've never taken the trouble to acquire. It also has some canals, a beautiful bridge, and pretty little houses. If you'd like to have a ride on a gondola without dropping 80 euros, Comacchio is your place! The gondolier may be wearing a white undershirt and he won't be singing "O Sole Mio". Our gondolier gave us a souvenir clam shell, though, on which he had written "Souvenir di Comacchio" with pink nail polish. You won't get anything like that from a gondolier in Venice!

There's also a fascinating museum in Comacchio about an ancient Roman boat that was dug out of the mud near here. You can't see the actual remains of the ship (yet) but they have a lot of the things that were found in it. It sank in shallow water, and no human remains were found, so they think everyone made it to safety when the ship started to sink. This museum is closed from 1 PM to 3 PM.

If you do take the autostrada, the best place to stop would probably be Ferrara; the direct trip to Venice would be shorter by autostrada, but the need to get off the autostrada and then back on would eat up a good part of the time saved. I would think it would take about 4 to 4 1/2 hours. Ferrara is a very attractive small city, with a beautiful ducal palace.

I really hate the stretch of autostrada between Florence and Bologna because of tunnels, heavy truck traffic and a roadway that seems to me a little too curvy and hilly for the speeds of the road. I drove it once in the rain after dark, and since then I would prefer a longer trip.

We've driven to Ravenna and Comacchio and I don't recall any problem finding parking with easy access to the center of town. I don't think we've ever driven to Ferrara. We've taken the train, and once or twice we've been to an art show there with a local cultural association, taking a rented bus.

In any of the places I've mentioned, it would be easy to get a simple meal in a restaurant that would welcome small children. Usually, restaurants will fix a little plate of pasta with butter and cheese for a child, and they'll even warm bottles and do other little favors for children. Italy is a country that loves children, even if sometimes their public spaces aren't designed with their needs in mind.

If you do take the autostrada, the Autogrills along the highway are not at all a bad place to eat. When you leave, they make you take a long route that passes large displays of toys and sweets, so you'd better blindfold the kid!
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Old May 10th, 2014, 04:17 AM
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According to Google Maps, the distance from Montepulciano to Venice is 364 km, taking the shorter autostrada route. I know Google sometimes is optimistic about the travel time, but I don't see how it could possibly take 6 hours. If you drive that slowly on the autostrada, you risk being rear-ended!
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Old May 10th, 2014, 04:22 AM
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Thank you both for the absolute wealth of information!!!! And for the correction on the length of the drive. Google Maps pegged it at 3.5 hrs but it seems it is overly optimistic . I'm going to research these suggestions during the boys' nap this afternoon. Thank you again!
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Old May 10th, 2014, 05:15 AM
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Too much hassle to get off the autostrada for a stop. Use the Autogrill for your rest and comfort stops and plan on 5 hours driving time.
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Old May 10th, 2014, 05:53 AM
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Montepulciano - Venezia according to http://www.viamichelin.it

as fast as possible and as much as possible on motorways:
30km on strade statali (50min), 270 km on motorways (3 hrs 30 min), plus 1 intermediate stop/reserve time for traffic jams (22 min).
And everybody knows that real driving times are usually longer than calculated by viamichelin.....

Road tolls: 26 EUR, Fuel: 44 EUR
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Old May 10th, 2014, 07:10 AM
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@bvlenci: Took the words right out of my mouth! Of all the roads I've ever driven/been a passenger, Florence-Boulogne is the pits!

I think we've gotten off the autostrada at Ferrara to eat before, but if I had it to do over again, I would do as others have suggested and just use the auto-strada's rest stop for its convenience.
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Old May 10th, 2014, 03:26 PM
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If it takes 3 1/2 hours to do 270 km, that's an average speed of 74 km per hour, which is less than the speed we drive on country roads. Nobody drives that slowly on the autostrada, where the speed limit is 130 km per hour!

All the same, I think I would take the non-autostrada route that goes through Ravenna, although it's about an hour longer. It would be a much more pleasant drive, and there would be several possibilities of a lunch stop.
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Old May 10th, 2014, 03:34 PM
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Also, if you took 50 minutes to drive 30 km, you'd be going just a little faster than a lawn mower.
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Old May 11th, 2014, 07:51 AM
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If you are used to drive rapidly on small and very sinuous routes crossing many villages with local traffic, semafori and people crossing the road at any moment, you will certainly be much faster than viamichelin calculates.
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