Hello,

We are planning a trip to Venice the
first week of December this year. We
need some advice on the following.
We will be staying in Venice for 1 week.

1). We found a reasonably priced hotel
- Tulip Inn Tritone Mestre (Via
Stazione 16). Is this too far out
from main attraction in Venice?
We found it on Priceline.com.

2). Do we need to take water taxi from
the airport to our hotel? I suppose
we don't need reservation for water
taxi. We will be arriving around 5pm.

3). How is the weather like in December in
Venice? I heard there might be a little
of high water during this time. Should
we bring couple of high boots?

4). We visited Rome and Florence about 2
years ago. Almost every museum requires
reservation. Is that true for museum
in Venice?

5). We are trying to figure out our budget
for meal, sightseeing. What should we
expect to spend? We are not real picky
on food.

6). Any other good suggestions on traveling
to Venice for first-timers.

Thanks,

venice_fan

The Tulip Inn is in Mestre, which is on the mainland, so no, you do not take a water taxi to get there from the airport. You take either a regular taxi or the orange ACTV bus, which is a local bus that has no luggage storage.

You have to take either a bus or the train between Mestre and Venice proper; they take about 10 minutes but they do not run very late.

You can buy high boots cheaply in Venice if there is high water - about 15 Euro.

In early December, you probably won't need reservations for anything. You might reserve for the Secret Itineraries tour at the Doge's Palace.

It is not clear to me is your hotel is in Venice proper or in Mestre. Mestre is a short bus ride away. Of course hotels there are much more reasonably priced. It is not the same to be in Mestre for obvious reasons but many people does it this way. I myself did it once, in Maestre you have most likely free parking in the hotel as we had that time. But of course you miss a lot because most people take the bus only once to Venice each day, if you are in a hotel in Venice you can come in and out of your hotel as many times as you wish and enjoy the magic day and night, specially when the hordes of tourist are gone.
Venice is not inexpensive so read all the postings and find out the best places to eat etc.

hi, v/fan,

Trying to deal with your Qs in turn:

1. Mestre is a separate town to Venice. You iwll psend a lot of time gonig backwards and forwards, and when daylight is so short, you want to be in Venice for as long as possible, IMO.

unless there is a strong financial incentive to stay in Mestre, then look for somewhere in Venice itself. it shouldn't be too full in December.

2.If you are staying in Mestre, you can't! you get there by bus. If you are staying in Venice there are various options, depending on where you are staying. once you have found somewhere you like, then you can think about getting there.

The choices are
-bus to piazzale Roma, then vaporeto / walk/ water taxi
-water taxi
-allilagunda boat.

there are lots of threads about these.

3. yep, it could be cold, wet, high water, or warm, wet, etc. who knows. instead of bringing them with you, you could do what I did an buy myself a very smart pair of wellingtons. DD loves them.

4.no. you can reserve for the secret doges tour, and San marco but that time of year you should be ok. you might like to book the opera though -
www.lafenice.it

5.difficult to tell. if you eat a reasonable breakfast in your hotel, and snack lunch, you might get away with E100 per day. or not.

6.you might like to look at buying a weeks pass for the vaporetti, and chorus ? pass for certain churches. Get yourselves a decent guide book from the libary and start reading.

regards, ann

1) i wouldn't stay off venice proper - takes away from the experience i would think. we just stayed at a cool little B&B in venice in a great location which at approx. 170E per night was 'cheap' for venice standards in September.

http://www.corte1321.com/en/location.htm

2) you don't 'need' to - the vaporetto system is foolproof, but it is certainly more relaxing / lower stress (we took one too the airport at the end of our trip - 80E)

3) no clue

4) we just walked into peggy guggenheim (which they say is generally really busy) with no problem - only one we went to.

5) we had some great meals for 2 people for between 55E - 65E for dinner (if you watch what you are ordering). we found good success for 'canal-side' dining in the dorsoduro area along the canale della guidecca (cheaper eats, great view, and much quieter - very few tourists.) you can also easily spend a few hundred euro on food as well - pick selectively and check out the posted menu before sitting down.

6) my main suggestion would be - spend the daytime hours exploring the perimeter of the city (cannaregio, dorsorduro, san polo & public gardens) and save San Marco and Rialto for the evening when the cruise ships, bus tours and day trippers have left - much easier. also, hence my suggestion to say on venice proper.

get a vaperatto pass for easy transportation and enjoy your visit!

ciao!

My best suggestion would be to try to stay in Venice proper, not Mestre.

What do you consider "reasonably priced"? I found a room in Venice proper for Nov 22-26 for 95 euros per night for two people including breakfast--a wonderful well-reviewed place, Hotel Al Ponte Mocenigo.

Ditto on the recos to stay in Venice and not in Mestre. The latter is nothing like Venice - a quite boring town on the mainland - with none of the charm of the canals or ancient palazzos etc.

In December rates should be low enough that you can stay in Venice proper.

How best you get to your hotel depends on it's exact location, how many of you, how much luggage you have to deal with and how wiling you are to trek around with it.

For Mestre you wouldn't use a boat at all - but bus from airport. If you say in Venice you can take a water taxi (about $100) or Alliguna (equivalent to express bus) to the nearest central point to your hotel (they'll have to tell you and give directions).

I like to use an online map like maps.google.com to check out where things are.

This hotel is definitely on the main land. As others have indicated it's about a 10min bus or train ride into Venice train/bus station, and from there you can catch a water bus (vaporetto) to San Marco - it'll take another 30min or so to get to San Marco area.

I also recommend you stay in Venice proper - the 45-60min commute to various points of interest each way, each day is not optimum.

You say you found it on priceline. If you've already purchased it on priceline, just make the best of the situation and plan your visits to Venice well so you don't waste time getting around.

Hi VF,

If you haven't booked your hotel yet, what is your budget?

Train schedules between Venezia Mestre and Venezia San Lucia are at www.trenitalia.com/en/index.html.

Cost is about 1E each way.

Don't bring boots.

Your meal budget will be about the same in Euro as it was for Rome and Florence.

>Any other good suggestions ,,,

Look up Venice under "Destinations".

Enjoy your visit.

Do try to stay in venice we rented an reasonable apartment in Castello last fall. Quite neighborhood close to a water taxi stop.
http://www.holiday-rentals.co.uk/Ven...fa/find.squery
property # 66829

Like everyone else has said -- don't stay in Mestre! You should be able to find a decent place in Venice at that time of year without it costing an arm and leg. You will want to stay in Venice "proper" for your first trip, because you will enjoy it so much at night walking around after the daytrippers have left.

Hello All,

Thanks for all the good suggestions.

We were not quite sure if Tulip Inn
were outside Venice city boundary.
So we want to check with you first.
We appreciate your advices before
making that decision.

Since we have not book our lodging yet,
we checked the availability for the two
hotels suggested(check in on December
2nd and check out on December 8th).

The Cortel1321 B&B does not have
anything available. The Al Ponte
Mocenigo charges about 140 Euros
per night. Both hotels looks very
nice and price is quite reasonable.
So we may book with hotel Al Ponte
Mocenigo.

We need advice on whether to better
take the water taxi from the airport
or not. Since we are not too familiar
with the public transportation and
we have two pieces of luggage.

Thanks again,

venice_fan

hi, v/fan,

it looks like a great location and a good price.

once you have your booking, e-mail the hotel to ask for their advice.

it looks as if you could get the bus to piazzale Roma then take teh vaporetoo [ask them to tell you which one wil ldrop you closest] or a water taxi from thier as well.

the bus is so easy and cheap that there's no point getting a water taxi from the airport unless you have to. you just buy a 3E ticket from the ticket office on the left as you exit the airport, then get on the big blue bus at the stop right ahead of you. this takes you right into the piazzale roma, where you can get the vaporetto or water taxi.

the money you save you could spend on a gondola ride or a nice meal.

regards, ann

oh, dear, excuse the horrible typos.

If you can afford it, take the water taxi from the airport. It is quite a wonderful experience to speed across the lagoon with Venice floating in the distance getting larger and larger until you suddenly glide into the city. I'll never forget that ride.

If you like the look and price of Hotel Al Ponte Mocenigo, grab it now. It is becoming very popular so the room may not be available for long. Sounds like they are offering you one of the superior rooms (unless there are more than two of you).

To reach Hotel Al Ponte Mocenigo in 2006, we used the blue bus and then the vaporetto to get there as annhig described. The express bus to Piazzale Roma was 3 euros. From there, we bought a 72-hour transit pass for our four day visit, so our trip to the hotel was included. The route is along the Grand Canal, so a single vaporetto ticket would cost about 6 euros. The vaporetto stop is San Stae and the hotel is quite close. Very easy and economical.

You could also purchase your transit pass at the airport and ride the slower, less comfortable, orange public bus. The entire trip, bus and boat, would be included in the pass.

For my upcoming trip, there will be four of us, so we plan to splurge on a private water taxi--closer to 90 euros.

If price is a concern, take the bus and vaporetto to your hotel. However, you can save even more than mentioned above.

At the airport, buy your 7-day vaporetto pass. Come out from getting your luggage, turn left and go past the long line at the ATVO desk on your left (where people are getting Alilaguna tickets) to get to the ACTV desk on your right, where there will be no line – no credit cards, you have to have cash). The pass covers the ACTV Orange #5 bus to Piazzale Roma, which takes around 20-25 minutes (it doesn’t cover the ATVO express blue bus, which maybe takes five minutes less) and of course then covers the vaporetto to your hotel. And the ACTV bus DOES have plenty of room for luggage right on the bus.

Thanks J62, Your suggestion of going to maps.google.com helped me find our hotel in Venice. We are going to Italy October 6 for 2 weeks and though I have been to Venice many times, the hotels can be difficult to find.