Trip Report: Paris, Venice, Rome with Family of Four
Jul 10th, 2008 | 08:42 AM
#1
Original Poster
Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 29
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Trip Report: Paris, Venice, Rome with Family of Four
We are back from our first trip to Europe. Mom, Dad, and two daughters, ages 20 and 18. Being our first and maybe last trip as a family to Europe, we had a quick and aggressive itinerary: 4 nights in Paris, 2 nights in Venice, 4 nights in Rome, 1 night in London (really just a layover due to flight arrangements).
I am so appreciative of all the information I learned on Fodor’s. It made a huge difference on our trip, so I wanted to reciprocate with some sort of trip report. This is not going to be a day by day report, but rather a listing of do’s and don’ts that we learned along the way. Most of these items will probably no brainers to frequent European travelers, but they might help others that are newbies like we were. Also, part of making this trip doable money-wise, especially with the state of the dollar, we did a lot of things on the cheap side, so I’ll comment on those.
USA to Paris:
• DO heed everyone’s advice to pack light. My DDs thought I was crazy when I told them they would have to pack for a 2 week trip in a 19” suitcase! If you are planning on taking any mass transit with your suitcases or have apartments with only stairs, a bigger suitcase would make life miserable.
• If your suitcase has an expandable option, DON’T leave home with it already expanded. That extra space is perfect to add souvenirs during the trip and you just never seem to get things packed as well as you did at home.
• DO travel with a laptop if you have free Internet access, as we did in our apartments. We found this an invaluable tool, if you don’t mind carrying a little extra weight. It allowed us to be a little less planned ahead of time. We also used it download pictures from our cameras at the end of the day, keep a travel blog for friends at home, and look up information for questions we came up with throughout the day. Not for everyone, but if you’re used to having the Internet at your fingertips when at home, it was nice to still have it as we traveled.
• If you’re taking a red-eye trip over, DON’T forget to pack the toothbrush/paste in your carry-on. Would make a huge difference in feeling a little fresher when arriving. Newbie mistake, but I never saw it on any packing lists.
• DO take the cheapest way from the airport, if you’re under budget constraints. We’re relatively young and everyone had their own small suitcase, so we didn’t have any problems on trains or metros. Yes, it took a little longer, but that was the choice we made up front. We took the RER to Gare du Nord, transferred to Metro. It was easy to find the RER station by following the signs. Went to the ticket office and bought RER tickets and carnet of metro tickets for the rest of the stay.
Paris Metro Tips:
• DO use the RATP website (http://www.ratp.info) to map out your routes to/from your lodgings and the major sites you’ll be visiting. It will show you bus, RER, and Metro and you have a couple choices, like fastest route or least walking. We found this very useful, especially since we had our laptop and could do it daily.
• DON’T keep your metro tickets near your cellphone. We had problems with some of our tickets not working and someone told us this might have been the cause.
• In a related tip, if your metro ticket does not work, DON’T go through the turnstile that some nice French man holds open for you. Everyone in my family got through except me, so I took advantage of the man’s generosity. As luck would have it the “metro police” were at our next station, I somehow managed to get out of a hefty fine with my broken French!
• DO know the name of the final station on your route. It is not enough to just know which station you want to get off at. You need to know that final stop to know which side of the track to be on. The metro maps are usually not displayed at the point that the paths diverge.
• DO plan in advance with your traveling companions what to do if anyone gets separated. If you’re traveling on the metros at rush hours, this WILL happen. It’s easy to not get on the train together or not get off together. Make sure everyone has extra metro tickets and knows where you’re going. It’s one of our favorite memories now of me on the train and the rest of my family waving at me through the closed doors! It was a long 3 minute wait for them at our destination station.
• DO know when the last train leaves the station for a return trip if you’re going to be out late. We just barely made the last train after our night visit to the Eiffel Tower.
Next … Four Days in Paris
I am so appreciative of all the information I learned on Fodor’s. It made a huge difference on our trip, so I wanted to reciprocate with some sort of trip report. This is not going to be a day by day report, but rather a listing of do’s and don’ts that we learned along the way. Most of these items will probably no brainers to frequent European travelers, but they might help others that are newbies like we were. Also, part of making this trip doable money-wise, especially with the state of the dollar, we did a lot of things on the cheap side, so I’ll comment on those.
USA to Paris:
• DO heed everyone’s advice to pack light. My DDs thought I was crazy when I told them they would have to pack for a 2 week trip in a 19” suitcase! If you are planning on taking any mass transit with your suitcases or have apartments with only stairs, a bigger suitcase would make life miserable.
• If your suitcase has an expandable option, DON’T leave home with it already expanded. That extra space is perfect to add souvenirs during the trip and you just never seem to get things packed as well as you did at home.
• DO travel with a laptop if you have free Internet access, as we did in our apartments. We found this an invaluable tool, if you don’t mind carrying a little extra weight. It allowed us to be a little less planned ahead of time. We also used it download pictures from our cameras at the end of the day, keep a travel blog for friends at home, and look up information for questions we came up with throughout the day. Not for everyone, but if you’re used to having the Internet at your fingertips when at home, it was nice to still have it as we traveled.
• If you’re taking a red-eye trip over, DON’T forget to pack the toothbrush/paste in your carry-on. Would make a huge difference in feeling a little fresher when arriving. Newbie mistake, but I never saw it on any packing lists.
• DO take the cheapest way from the airport, if you’re under budget constraints. We’re relatively young and everyone had their own small suitcase, so we didn’t have any problems on trains or metros. Yes, it took a little longer, but that was the choice we made up front. We took the RER to Gare du Nord, transferred to Metro. It was easy to find the RER station by following the signs. Went to the ticket office and bought RER tickets and carnet of metro tickets for the rest of the stay.
Paris Metro Tips:
• DO use the RATP website (http://www.ratp.info) to map out your routes to/from your lodgings and the major sites you’ll be visiting. It will show you bus, RER, and Metro and you have a couple choices, like fastest route or least walking. We found this very useful, especially since we had our laptop and could do it daily.
• DON’T keep your metro tickets near your cellphone. We had problems with some of our tickets not working and someone told us this might have been the cause.
• In a related tip, if your metro ticket does not work, DON’T go through the turnstile that some nice French man holds open for you. Everyone in my family got through except me, so I took advantage of the man’s generosity. As luck would have it the “metro police” were at our next station, I somehow managed to get out of a hefty fine with my broken French!
• DO know the name of the final station on your route. It is not enough to just know which station you want to get off at. You need to know that final stop to know which side of the track to be on. The metro maps are usually not displayed at the point that the paths diverge.
• DO plan in advance with your traveling companions what to do if anyone gets separated. If you’re traveling on the metros at rush hours, this WILL happen. It’s easy to not get on the train together or not get off together. Make sure everyone has extra metro tickets and knows where you’re going. It’s one of our favorite memories now of me on the train and the rest of my family waving at me through the closed doors! It was a long 3 minute wait for them at our destination station.
• DO know when the last train leaves the station for a return trip if you’re going to be out late. We just barely made the last train after our night visit to the Eiffel Tower.
Next … Four Days in Paris
Jul 11th, 2008 | 05:31 AM
#6
Original Poster
Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 29
Likes: 0
"Direction", that's exactly what it is. I couldn't think exactly how to say it in my original post. This is a very common part of riding mass transit, but being that we don't live in a city with much mass transit and this was our first real experience with it ... we were not prepared at first. By the time we got to London, it was natural and easy. When you first start looking at metro maps, it's easy to just focus on your stop and not pay attention to the direction, until you need to know which subterraneum passage-way to take. Not good with four people and four suitcases blocking the way!
Jul 11th, 2008 | 05:57 AM
#7
Original Poster
Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 29
Likes: 0
Paris ...
After we got over the “Oh my gosh, we’re really in Paris” feeling, we started off right away.
Apartment Tips:
• DO look at apartments for your stay. Apartments seemed to be a cheaper choice for our family of four than hotels, especially if you want to stay fairly central. We used Vacation in Paris and had a great experience. I’ll post a separate review of our apartment on Slow Travel soon.
• DO make sure that everyone is ready for a different experience. If you’re used to staying at Hilton or Hyatt, this will be different. Attitude is everything. We set out to embrace the challenges and enjoy every moment … this came in handy multiple times!
• If your apartment doesn’t have an elevator, DO assume the stairs will be steep, spiral, and narrow. Keep this in mind when picking an apartment and luggage. Our stairs were all of the above with the last flight of steps also being slightly sloped downwards!
• DO take a small flashlight. It took us two nights to find the light switch to turn on the stairway lights. Nothing like climbing 4 flights at the end of a jet-lagged day with the light of a small flashlight!
• DO pick an apartment with A/C if you’re traveling during the summer. The start of our trip was a little strained, as Paris was experiencing above average highs. Even though we live in a hot climate, we usually don’t spend all day outside walking around and riding hot metros. It sure would have been nice to walk into a cool apartment at the end of the day. We looked at the average temps for June and thought we wouldn’t need A/C, but you won’t know the exact weather until it’s too late to rebook.
• DON’T assume you’ll be able to keep the windows open at night, especially if you’re not used to street noise. As luck would have it, our quaint apartment had a bar on one side and a theatre club on the other. Paris bars seem to have as much action outside in the streets as inside and they stay out late! We had to make the choice between relative quiet, but hot, and loud with small breeze. Not an easy decision most nights. Might not be a big deal to most people, we’ll splurge for A/C next time.
Paris:
• DO use the Streetwise Maps. Since they are laminated, they hold up well in bags, are easy to hold open in the wind, can use a dry erase marker to circle destinations and highlight walking routes, and make a handy fan!
• DO download the Louvre’s Self-Guided Tour for the “Masterpieces of the Louvre”.
• DON’T try to see all the Masterpieces of the Louvre on your first afternoon on practically no sleep, with no museum map! DDs had been dreaming about going to the Louvre for years and it’s the first thing we did as it was within walking distance of our apartment. Considering we had two weeks of museums ahead of us, we should have paced it out more. Advise I had read on Fodor’s, but hard to remember in the excitement of finally being there.
• DON’T forget to get a museum map. Since we got Museum Passes we didn’t pick up a map at the regular ticket windows. The Louvre is a maze!
• DO get a Museum Pass. Even though we were traveling on a budget, we decided to splurge here, as we also had time constraints. Museums were one of the top things we wanted to do, so we chose the freedom of going more than once, hopefully skipping lines, going into a museum to only see a few things, etc. I did the math before we left and it would have saved us money if we went to all the museums we wanted to. We didn’t end up getting to all of them, but the other intangibles still made it worthwhile to us. We also used the Pass for Versailles and just bought the separate RER ticket to get there. Paid for one audioguide at the Palace. Cheaper than the Forfait Loisirs package if you already have the Museum Pass.
• DON’T be in a rush to get from location to location. After our whirlwind march through the Louvre we went back to our apartment to recover. We had decided not to go on to the Eiffel Tower because we were just too tired. We were disappointed we wouldn’t see it on our first day in Paris. It was two days later that we realized if we had just walked towards the Jardin des Tuileries a few yards, we could have seen the Tower! DO take time to enjoy everything around you, you don’t know what you might be missing!
• DO stop and get a sandwich to eat on a bench along the Champs Elysees. DON’T look for a trash can though, we couldn’t find one. We finally went down into a metro station to find one.
• DO go to see the Eiffel Tower at night. The twinkling lights are magical. DON’T assume the lines will be shorter at night, they were quite long the night we were there. We ended up going back the next morning and the lines were minimal at 9:30am. We thought it was worth it to go all the way up to the top.
• DO take advantage of the late closing of the Louvre on Wednesday nights. Dinner took a little longer than we anticipated (a repeating theme throughout our trip), and we ended up getting to the museum with only an hour. Thanks to the Museum Pass, it was still worth it. We were basically alone in most of the galleries.
• DON’T get scared when gates start going down and lights start turning off. There’s usually a museum guide close by to guide you to the nearest elevator that takes you all the way down to the exit.
• DO climb the steps up the Notre Dame Towers. The entrance is a separate line from going into the church. The line is on the left side as you face the church. The line only moves sporadically as they let one group of 25-30 in at a time. There’s a small wall you can lean against, so it’s not too bad a wait. We also found it a great time to write postcards. There are a couple of souvenir shops and a creperie right across the street from the line. We would take turns going over and buying postcards, etc. The views from the top of the tower are amazing and coming face to face with the famous gargoyles priceless. We didn’t feel rushed at all even though they manage the number people in the towers. Although the wait in the gift shop was a little annoying.
• DO checkout the butcher and cheese shops, especially if you are in an apartment. Our favorite dinner of all was the one we put together ourselves by walking down Rue Montorgueil buying rotisserie chicken, salad, baguette, and eclairs.
• DO use the grocery stores to stay stocked up on cheap cold drinks. You can buy the bigger bottles of water at a fraction of what you’ll pay at the little shops. Fill leftover little bottles in the morning to get you going for the day.
As far as specifically what we did in Paris, nothing out of the ordinary. Since it was our first trip, all the usual sights were on our list. Here’s what we did, in case anyone wants to ask a specific question: Louvre, D’Orsay, Pompidou, Versailles, Eiffel Tour, Arc de Triomphe, Champs Elysees, Notre Dame, Sainte Chappelle and many other small sights and views as we walked from place to place.
After we got over the “Oh my gosh, we’re really in Paris” feeling, we started off right away.
Apartment Tips:
• DO look at apartments for your stay. Apartments seemed to be a cheaper choice for our family of four than hotels, especially if you want to stay fairly central. We used Vacation in Paris and had a great experience. I’ll post a separate review of our apartment on Slow Travel soon.
• DO make sure that everyone is ready for a different experience. If you’re used to staying at Hilton or Hyatt, this will be different. Attitude is everything. We set out to embrace the challenges and enjoy every moment … this came in handy multiple times!
• If your apartment doesn’t have an elevator, DO assume the stairs will be steep, spiral, and narrow. Keep this in mind when picking an apartment and luggage. Our stairs were all of the above with the last flight of steps also being slightly sloped downwards!
• DO take a small flashlight. It took us two nights to find the light switch to turn on the stairway lights. Nothing like climbing 4 flights at the end of a jet-lagged day with the light of a small flashlight!
• DO pick an apartment with A/C if you’re traveling during the summer. The start of our trip was a little strained, as Paris was experiencing above average highs. Even though we live in a hot climate, we usually don’t spend all day outside walking around and riding hot metros. It sure would have been nice to walk into a cool apartment at the end of the day. We looked at the average temps for June and thought we wouldn’t need A/C, but you won’t know the exact weather until it’s too late to rebook.
• DON’T assume you’ll be able to keep the windows open at night, especially if you’re not used to street noise. As luck would have it, our quaint apartment had a bar on one side and a theatre club on the other. Paris bars seem to have as much action outside in the streets as inside and they stay out late! We had to make the choice between relative quiet, but hot, and loud with small breeze. Not an easy decision most nights. Might not be a big deal to most people, we’ll splurge for A/C next time.
Paris:
• DO use the Streetwise Maps. Since they are laminated, they hold up well in bags, are easy to hold open in the wind, can use a dry erase marker to circle destinations and highlight walking routes, and make a handy fan!
• DO download the Louvre’s Self-Guided Tour for the “Masterpieces of the Louvre”.
• DON’T try to see all the Masterpieces of the Louvre on your first afternoon on practically no sleep, with no museum map! DDs had been dreaming about going to the Louvre for years and it’s the first thing we did as it was within walking distance of our apartment. Considering we had two weeks of museums ahead of us, we should have paced it out more. Advise I had read on Fodor’s, but hard to remember in the excitement of finally being there.
• DON’T forget to get a museum map. Since we got Museum Passes we didn’t pick up a map at the regular ticket windows. The Louvre is a maze!
• DO get a Museum Pass. Even though we were traveling on a budget, we decided to splurge here, as we also had time constraints. Museums were one of the top things we wanted to do, so we chose the freedom of going more than once, hopefully skipping lines, going into a museum to only see a few things, etc. I did the math before we left and it would have saved us money if we went to all the museums we wanted to. We didn’t end up getting to all of them, but the other intangibles still made it worthwhile to us. We also used the Pass for Versailles and just bought the separate RER ticket to get there. Paid for one audioguide at the Palace. Cheaper than the Forfait Loisirs package if you already have the Museum Pass.
• DON’T be in a rush to get from location to location. After our whirlwind march through the Louvre we went back to our apartment to recover. We had decided not to go on to the Eiffel Tower because we were just too tired. We were disappointed we wouldn’t see it on our first day in Paris. It was two days later that we realized if we had just walked towards the Jardin des Tuileries a few yards, we could have seen the Tower! DO take time to enjoy everything around you, you don’t know what you might be missing!
• DO stop and get a sandwich to eat on a bench along the Champs Elysees. DON’T look for a trash can though, we couldn’t find one. We finally went down into a metro station to find one.
• DO go to see the Eiffel Tower at night. The twinkling lights are magical. DON’T assume the lines will be shorter at night, they were quite long the night we were there. We ended up going back the next morning and the lines were minimal at 9:30am. We thought it was worth it to go all the way up to the top.
• DO take advantage of the late closing of the Louvre on Wednesday nights. Dinner took a little longer than we anticipated (a repeating theme throughout our trip), and we ended up getting to the museum with only an hour. Thanks to the Museum Pass, it was still worth it. We were basically alone in most of the galleries.
• DON’T get scared when gates start going down and lights start turning off. There’s usually a museum guide close by to guide you to the nearest elevator that takes you all the way down to the exit.
• DO climb the steps up the Notre Dame Towers. The entrance is a separate line from going into the church. The line is on the left side as you face the church. The line only moves sporadically as they let one group of 25-30 in at a time. There’s a small wall you can lean against, so it’s not too bad a wait. We also found it a great time to write postcards. There are a couple of souvenir shops and a creperie right across the street from the line. We would take turns going over and buying postcards, etc. The views from the top of the tower are amazing and coming face to face with the famous gargoyles priceless. We didn’t feel rushed at all even though they manage the number people in the towers. Although the wait in the gift shop was a little annoying.
• DO checkout the butcher and cheese shops, especially if you are in an apartment. Our favorite dinner of all was the one we put together ourselves by walking down Rue Montorgueil buying rotisserie chicken, salad, baguette, and eclairs.
• DO use the grocery stores to stay stocked up on cheap cold drinks. You can buy the bigger bottles of water at a fraction of what you’ll pay at the little shops. Fill leftover little bottles in the morning to get you going for the day.
As far as specifically what we did in Paris, nothing out of the ordinary. Since it was our first trip, all the usual sights were on our list. Here’s what we did, in case anyone wants to ask a specific question: Louvre, D’Orsay, Pompidou, Versailles, Eiffel Tour, Arc de Triomphe, Champs Elysees, Notre Dame, Sainte Chappelle and many other small sights and views as we walked from place to place.
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Jul 11th, 2008 | 12:48 PM
#9
Original Poster
Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 29
Likes: 0
Anyone can get overloaded with museum visits if you're not careful. Make sure you don't try to visit more than one museum a day and keep the visits short. This is where the Museum Pass comes in handy. At most museums you can skip the lines at the ticket windows. There are still lines a security sometimes though. Also, the Museum Pass allows more flexibility so you don't feel like you have to see everything in one visit.
Do your homework in advance on the special paintings or sculptures you want to see at each museum and try to figure out where they are, so you don't spend a lot of time walking around in cirlces. Of course, don't forget to leave time to discover new things too.
Does your son have any special interests? You can try to find items that he would be interested in. Or does he enjoy "navigating"? He can be in charge of the map.
The Centre Pompidou is a great museum to cleanse the "art palate" with some pretty funky art. I can't imagine any 11 year old boy not liking the things in this museum. Including the building itself with the escalators along the outside!
Basically, make sure you have a variety of sights to see on any given day, something to make everyone happy. That way everyone will have something to look forward to each day.
Do your homework in advance on the special paintings or sculptures you want to see at each museum and try to figure out where they are, so you don't spend a lot of time walking around in cirlces. Of course, don't forget to leave time to discover new things too.
Does your son have any special interests? You can try to find items that he would be interested in. Or does he enjoy "navigating"? He can be in charge of the map.
The Centre Pompidou is a great museum to cleanse the "art palate" with some pretty funky art. I can't imagine any 11 year old boy not liking the things in this museum. Including the building itself with the escalators along the outside!
Basically, make sure you have a variety of sights to see on any given day, something to make everyone happy. That way everyone will have something to look forward to each day.
Jul 11th, 2008 | 02:13 PM
#10
Joined: Apr 2008
Posts: 4
Likes: 0
ontoeurope,
Thanks for the great info..Our visit is almost identical to yours..7 nights in Paris, 2 nights in Venice and 5 nights in Rome. We booked apartments in all 3 places with VRBO.com. We'll be buying some food in Paris at the markets and enjoying some meals and downtime in the apt. Our biggest dilemma now is how to get to Venice; take the train or fly.
Thanks again for your input.
Thanks for the great info..Our visit is almost identical to yours..7 nights in Paris, 2 nights in Venice and 5 nights in Rome. We booked apartments in all 3 places with VRBO.com. We'll be buying some food in Paris at the markets and enjoying some meals and downtime in the apt. Our biggest dilemma now is how to get to Venice; take the train or fly.
Thanks again for your input.
Jul 11th, 2008 | 06:55 PM
#11
Original Poster
Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 29
Likes: 0
Venice
Getting there … we were really enamored with the idea of taking the night train to Venice. With such a short time in Venice, it would have been nice not to lose daylight hours traveling. In the end, we flew. Here are the reasons why:
• It’s actually not cheaper. Unless you already have a Eurail Pass for other segments of your travel, the night train is much more expensive than plane tickets. Our accommodations in Paris were really reasonable, so even factoring an extra night didn’t make up the difference.
• We found cheap plane tickets. We used http://www.traveleurope.com/ to find the cheapest fares. We flew EasyJet. Very similar to Southwest Airlines back home. They flew out of CDG and into Marco Polo. We were already experts on getting to/from CDG via Metro in Paris. Great flight.
• The occasional stories of thefts on night trains were just too believable to ignore. Also, DH can’t sleep in any type of adverse conditions, so it would mean almost another day of jet lag for him.
So we gave up the romantic dream of the sleeper car and got to Venice in less than 2 hours (not counting travel to/from airport), instead of 16!.
• Again, DON’T worry about taken the cheapest travel alternatives. We had already decided we were going to get a 48 hour vaporetto pass, so it wasn’t any extra to take the ATVO Express bus from the airport. The other alternatives are faster and probably offer a more spectacular entrance into the city, but with a family of four, these extras can really add up.
• DO get the vaporetto pass. Yes, you can walk everywhere in Venice, but it’s nice not to have to if you don’t want to. We usually found that it took us longer than we thought to walk, after you factor in the extra time for being lost! The passes made it nice to just step off and on the boats without having to worry about buying tickets. By the way, in the two days we were there, we were only stopped for tickets once.
• DO “plan” on getting lost. Yes, it happens, and yes, it’s fun, if you’re ready for it to happen. Even if you think you know where you’re going, just one wrong turn can make a big difference. One of our other favorite memories of this trip is literally stumbling on St. Mark’s Square one night! It was getting dark and being “lost” was losing its appeal. In the distance we could see a square at the end of the street/alley. Squares are always a good place to find your bearings! As we got closer, we said “Wow, looks like a big square”. Little did we know! Needless to say, we took the vaporetto home!
• DO walk away from the main canal areas to find places to eat. There are plenty of other restaurants that are cheaper and more local to experience.
• DO email to reserve an entrance time for St. Mark’s Basilica (http://www.alata.it/eng/booking/sanmarco.asp). This allows you to skip the long line when you show up at your time. Go just to the left of the regular line and show your email confirmation.
• DO pay the few extra euros for the museum upstairs. There are balconies from where you can see the mosaics much closer. You also get to go out on the outer balcony for a great view of the square.
• DO wait to buy any glass items until you get to Murano. We found that the prices generally were lower on the island. The glass factory tours/demonstrations were very interesting.
We enjoyed Venice more than we thought we would. Although the initial views of the Gran Canal with graffiti on the Rialto Bridge and scores of souvenir kiosks was a little disconcerting, we still found its charms.
Next … Rome
Getting there … we were really enamored with the idea of taking the night train to Venice. With such a short time in Venice, it would have been nice not to lose daylight hours traveling. In the end, we flew. Here are the reasons why:
• It’s actually not cheaper. Unless you already have a Eurail Pass for other segments of your travel, the night train is much more expensive than plane tickets. Our accommodations in Paris were really reasonable, so even factoring an extra night didn’t make up the difference.
• We found cheap plane tickets. We used http://www.traveleurope.com/ to find the cheapest fares. We flew EasyJet. Very similar to Southwest Airlines back home. They flew out of CDG and into Marco Polo. We were already experts on getting to/from CDG via Metro in Paris. Great flight.
• The occasional stories of thefts on night trains were just too believable to ignore. Also, DH can’t sleep in any type of adverse conditions, so it would mean almost another day of jet lag for him.
So we gave up the romantic dream of the sleeper car and got to Venice in less than 2 hours (not counting travel to/from airport), instead of 16!.
• Again, DON’T worry about taken the cheapest travel alternatives. We had already decided we were going to get a 48 hour vaporetto pass, so it wasn’t any extra to take the ATVO Express bus from the airport. The other alternatives are faster and probably offer a more spectacular entrance into the city, but with a family of four, these extras can really add up.
• DO get the vaporetto pass. Yes, you can walk everywhere in Venice, but it’s nice not to have to if you don’t want to. We usually found that it took us longer than we thought to walk, after you factor in the extra time for being lost! The passes made it nice to just step off and on the boats without having to worry about buying tickets. By the way, in the two days we were there, we were only stopped for tickets once.
• DO “plan” on getting lost. Yes, it happens, and yes, it’s fun, if you’re ready for it to happen. Even if you think you know where you’re going, just one wrong turn can make a big difference. One of our other favorite memories of this trip is literally stumbling on St. Mark’s Square one night! It was getting dark and being “lost” was losing its appeal. In the distance we could see a square at the end of the street/alley. Squares are always a good place to find your bearings! As we got closer, we said “Wow, looks like a big square”. Little did we know! Needless to say, we took the vaporetto home!
• DO walk away from the main canal areas to find places to eat. There are plenty of other restaurants that are cheaper and more local to experience.
• DO email to reserve an entrance time for St. Mark’s Basilica (http://www.alata.it/eng/booking/sanmarco.asp). This allows you to skip the long line when you show up at your time. Go just to the left of the regular line and show your email confirmation.
• DO pay the few extra euros for the museum upstairs. There are balconies from where you can see the mosaics much closer. You also get to go out on the outer balcony for a great view of the square.
• DO wait to buy any glass items until you get to Murano. We found that the prices generally were lower on the island. The glass factory tours/demonstrations were very interesting.
We enjoyed Venice more than we thought we would. Although the initial views of the Gran Canal with graffiti on the Rialto Bridge and scores of souvenir kiosks was a little disconcerting, we still found its charms.
Next … Rome
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mindibz
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Apr 23rd, 2008 08:03 AM
ssk4f
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Jun 19th, 2003 11:49 AM
