This is a review of the first leg of my recent trip to Italy. I am not reporting on everything because there is already a lot of that on this Web site; just some things I noticed and thought were worth mentioning.

Venice, Arrive Aug 27 – Depart August 30, 2006

Venice Pros
* Checking our luggage at Piazzale Roma..cheap.
* Hotel being on gondola route
* Restaurant, Bar Cafeteria Elite, on Calle Giacinto
* Street fair in Dorsoduro district
* San Marco Piazza in the evening

Venice Cons
* Train station – everything about them
- Workers either didn’t speak English or didn’t want to admit they did
- Stairs in the front with no ramps for luggage
- Confusion at Mestre station about which train would take us to Florence
- Crossing the tracks above or below ground. Each was difficult with luggage on wheels
* The food wasn’t as good as I had hoped it would be. The gelato was mediocre (happy to report it was better elsewhere)

We took US Airways and arrived in Venice an hour early. It was raining and very hot and carrying my luggage was a pain in the neck, literally. The girl in the VELA booth at the airport suggested checking our bags at the Piazzale Roma instead of at the Mestre station as we had planned. We were so glad we took her advice because the Venice train stations were expensive for checking luggage while the Piazzale Roma was very reasonable. We paid 3.50 euros when we dropped off our luggage and the balance when we picked it up. I think it was 3.50 per day.

Venice is a jewel. I wasn't particularly looking forward to the stay there, but I was so pleasantly surprised. I hope to return and visit there again some day.

People had told me that the Venice can be smelly, but there was no smell during our stay. No cats either. I had heard there were a lot of them there. There were many, many people out walking their dogs and lots and lots of pigeons.

The vaparetto schedule was a little confusing to us so my suggestion would be to learn the names of the stops ahead of time. They all sounded unfamiliar to me. After a day of it, it was easy. Of course, there are only two routes to worry about for going up and down the Grand Canal; nos. 1 and 82. One stops at each and every stop while the other skips several at a time. Be careful when catching it in the morning. We almost waited for the express vaparetto and were glad we didn’t because we found out the every stop vaparetto was the only one running that early in the morning. I can’t remember which was which and I don’t want to guess wrong.

I never did find the Internet hub that is supposed to be near the basilica. The line for the basilica was moving very quickly. We had reservations, but I don’t think we would have needed them that day. We also noticed that they were letting people in before 10 a.m. when we thought they weren’t supposed to be open that early. The provide paper shawls for women whose shoulders are exposed.

Definitely go up in the Campanile for the view, it’s spectacular. The cost was 6 euros and there was no line at 9:15 a.m. on a Monday.

I did not like much of the food we had while in Venice. I tried several different things and decided to just get pizza from the “take away” places the last couple of days. The one exception I had was when we stumbled upon a small place north of San Marco Piazza called Bar Cafeteria Elite. It was one block of Chiesa dei SS Giovanni e Paolo on Calle Giacinto. We had just been treated rather poorly at a place down the street. I gave up trying to order, nearly in tears because the waitress was so mean, and walked about two blocks and found this place. The lasagna was scrumptious. While we ate, we watched locals walking by with their families. It was so much different than the area around San Marco yet it is only a few blocks away.

We did the church walk. We had purchased the Venice Orange Card and the churches were included. One thing they didn’t tell us is that at the first church you receive a church card ticket. They just handed it to us and didn’t give us any instructions. My friend lost hers on the second day. She had to buy another in order to see the rest of the churches. I still had my church ticket so I didn’t have to buy one. They mark on your Venice Card that you have already received the ticket. That’s how they knew she had one and I guess you can only enter each church once on that ticket. Anyway, make sure you hold on to the ticket. The churches in Venice are lovely. Of course, the Santa Maria la Salute is breathtaking. But be sure to check out that San Frari church. It was prettier on the inside than SMS, in my opinion. My favorite church in Venice wasn’t on the church card. It is next to the train station, Chiesa S. Maria di Nazareth. The marble was just beautiful.

The Rialto Bridge was a mess. There are too many people day or night. You have to go there anyway to see it and get photographs, but be forewarned that it is packed with people.

There was some kind of a local flea market going on in the Campo Santa Margheria. From what I could understand from one of the ladies running a table, the market is twice a year. We had a great time looking through the treasures for sale and bought a few things to take home.

The map we used while in Venice was from Rick Steves’ trip planner. There is a map of all of Italy on one side of the map and then maps of Florence, Rome and Venice on the other side. Every canal and street we saw was properly indicated on this map. We walked all over Venice and never got lost. We also used this map in Florence and the same was true there. Great maps. We heard from other travelers that their maps weren’t very accurate. I had another map of Venice that showed the church locations better than the Rick Steves map. So together we found everything we were looking for.
The worse thing about Venice was the train station. The ticket window workers were unwilling to help us at all. There were VISA and MC stickers in the window, but they said they don’t take VISA and MC. So, we ended up using the self-service machine. Luckily, there was a woman there using the machine and she helped us answer all of the questions it asked. She recommended taking first class whenever possible and we are very glad we followed her advice. The difference in price is worth the added comfort and space.

The train station didn’t have ramps to roll your luggage up into the station on. One other thing to note is that when you need to find out what “Bin” your train is going to be in, you don’t always look for the town you are traveling to. When we were at the Mestre station looking for where the train to Florence was going to be, we couldn’t find Florence anywhere. We were tired and confused. We had lugged our luggage from track 5 or 6 over to the station. No one there would help us. They didn’t seem to speak English. Then, we finally decided that we probably wanted the train to Rome since it probably went through Florence. What you should look for is the departure time. That really helps. I can’t remember if the train number was on our ticket and then on the machine or not. All I knew was that we had ten minutes to find our train and none of them were going to Florence. That’s why we had to walk all the way over to the station to read the screens over there. Then we had to go all the way back to Bin 4. It was very stressful. We didn’t have that much trouble later traveling by train because we learned from that first experience. It just isn’t as easy as some people may lead you to believe.

There also isn’t a lot of room for luggage on all of the trains. On the train to Florence, the seats faced each other with a tray in the middle. This tray took up floor room and there wasn’t room for small bags at our feet. We stowed the small bags above. The large bags were too heavy to hoist up there. They also wouldn’t fit underneath the seats very well. The aisle was very narrow and people couldn’t get by with our luggage in the aisle. This also wasn’t the same on later trains.

I loved Venice and would love to go back again some day.

When I hit edit, it didn't save the changes I made. So, here's an except about our hotel:

We stayed at Hotel Mercurio while in Venice. We only had to try two different streets when looking for it the first time. After that, we had no trouble at all finding it even after dark. There are two workers, Vitorio and Notelle (sp?). They were helpful and spoke very good English. Our room, no. 24, had a window that opened over a canal that is on the gondola route. We could hear the music and singing from the gondaliers. It was quite magical. Some people might find the room a bit small, but I'm sure you get what you pay for. The room was 110 euro per night and it included breakfast each morning. All of the rooms we stayed in while in Italy were very small but we didn't spend much time in them so it didn't matter. This hotel had access to the Internet, but there was a charge of 3 euro for 30 minutes. I would definitely recommend this hotel to anyone staying in Venice.

Glad to hear you enjoyed Venice, and my two favorite churches!

Hotel Mercurio is a good budget choice. People were nice when I stayed there alone and this summer with friends. Breakfast is very plain and coffee not that good but that doesn't matter for the price I paid, I guess.

Santa Lucia Station does have a ramp. In order to get there, you must not get out of the front stairs. The ramp is located on the left side when you get out of the station.

I found Venetian gelato just fine (it may depend on you taste or maybe some people are just lucky - like me ;-) ) and much cheaper than e.g. in Paris. > 1 scoop = €1 most anywhere maybe except Piazza San Marco VS €2 in Paris.

> * Train station – everything about them

I have had little trouble with Italian stations. Perhaps that's partly due to my luggage that's usually on smaller side? It also might depend on people.

I assumed that the train stations had ramps SOMEHWERE, but they certainly weren't in the obvious places. It seems like if you're buidling a place where lots of people have luggage, you'd build a ramp system instead of stairs - or at least have both at the main entrance....not just for tourists. I can't imagine that Italian people enjoy carrying their suitcase up stairs any more than we do!

As for the gelato, my kids liked it but thought they were stingy. In Rome we got huge scoops. In Venice they used the small scoops (which is what I thought they'd be everywhere.)

Hi modglila-

Thanks for report on Venice, it was very informative. I'm leaving for Venice next Thursday and just had a quick question. When you were going from Venice to Florence, did you start at the Mestre station (not Santa Lucia)? I'm planning on taking the ES from Venice SL to Firenze and I know the train stops in Mestre but I don't have to get off and switch there, do I?

Thank you!

> I'm planning on taking the ES from Venice SL to Firenze and I know the train stops in Mestre but I don't have to get off and switch there, do I?

It depends on which train you are taking, some (most?) leave SL, some may not go to SL, coming from Treviso, stop at Mestre then go on to Florence without going into SL.

My answer above may not clear. If the ES train you are taking at SL IS going to Florence, obviously you don't have to change the train. Perhaps I don't understand you question. Which train do you have in mind taking?

modglila, the Santa Lucia train station was built in 1956 before rolling suitcases were invented.
Next time take the passage near the toilets on the left of the station, there is a ramp there.

Didn't you love the view of the canal from the station? It is so beautiful to me.

And I have the same problems with "bins", it can drive you crazy.
Glad you loved Venice over all, I do too.

Thanks for the report.

Good food can be hard to find in Venice, since so many restaurants cater to tourists and offer, I think, lower quality food. The best food usually is in the off-the-beaten-path spots.

As for the "bin" (binario) problem: I always match the departure time and train number on my ticket with what's listed on the bin board, rather than thinking in terms of the destination. That's a more reliable approach.

And sometimes it helps to master just a few phrases to avoid confusion. Such as "Questo è il treno giusto?" -- "Is this the right train?" -- as you show your ticket to the conductor.

But it sounds like you survived and fourished. Congrats!

What conductor? There were times we couldn't find anyone who worked for Trenitalia around.

Matching the ticket departure time and train number is definitely the route to go, but I had read instructions about finding your town on the overheads. That's why I mentioned my trouble so other people would know the alternative way to find their train.

As far as the ramp on the left-hand side, I know exactly what you are talking about, but it doesn't go all the way up, does it? I couldn't understand why it didn't go to the top. Is it possible that something has changed and another level added?

We started our journey from the Santa Lucia station and had to change trains at Mestre before going on to Florence. I don't know about other times during the day, but that's how our trip was.

Hi Kappa-

I'm taking the Eurostar from Venice SL to Firenze. I've done this before, but it's been a few years...In looking at the trenitalia website, I'm thinking the train just stops in Mestre and we most likely don't have to switch (not that that will stop me from having all my luggage ready by the door ready to jump off just in case).

Trip report continued (I had started a new thread and perhaps that wasn't the best idea so I am adding this here):

Second leg of my trip

Florence, Arrive Aug 30 - Depart Sept 1, 2006

After Venice, Florence just didn't stack up for me. They were undergoing renovations on SM Novella and the Duomo, so maybe that had a little to do with it.

We had planned on staying three days in Florence, but at the end of the first day, we decided to see if we could rearrange our itinerary. We called the agriturismo to check with her about arriving early, then we made arrangements to pick up our car earlier. We had to change the pickup location, but that wasn't a big deal. The only extra cost was that the hotel in Florence would not let us out of paying for all three nights.

There were so many people in Florence that even the pedestrian areas were difficult to navigate. We found that we couldn't stroll, talking as we walked along. Most times we had to walk single-file in order to walk down the sidewalk.

We found the leather school behind the Santa Croce Church. The products there were so pretty. If I had just had it in my budget to buy one, but I didn't; not on this trip anyway.

The best thing about our Florence stay was the evening we spent at Michael Angelo Piazza where we sat on the steps watching the sun set over Florence. We stayed for awhile watching the lights light up all over Florence. We got a lot of great pictures there.

The other thing I enjoyed quite a bit was the San Lorenzo Market. I had a lot of fun just browsing through all of the stands. I bought quite a few things too.

I was really tired from all of the walking we had done previously in Venice and my arthritis was acting up so I elected to not visit most of the museums. Instead I enjoyed them from outside and did some people-watching.

Still didn't come across any food that was outstanding while in Florence. We had some snacks at a frittoria that were very good though. I had fried apples and my friend had some kind of rice and sausage ball. She liked it so much she went back and bought another one.

Our hotel was just one block from the train station. That made it easy to find. We turned the corner and there it was. The balcony with a view was of the street that runs into the train station. It was a very noisy place to be, but the noise seemed to settled down and it didn't keep me awake at all. The room was the largest we had during our stay in Italy. And the breakfast there was the only one that included meat and cheese. The name of the hotel was Hotel Boccaccio. The Santa Maria Novella Perfumery is across the street and down a little way.

Speaking of the perfumery, I bought quite a few gifts in there. Everything smelled so good. The church was one of the things I did tour and it was quite lovely even thought the outside was under scaffolding.

We took a cab from our hotel to the car rental place even though it was just around the corner, about three blocks or so. The cost was 15 euro, which we split, and was well worth it. Getting out of Florence by car was more difficult than I thought it would be. I think it was mainly because the street that a sign had us go down ended up being closed. After that, we struggled to find our way out, but we made it.

The gelato was pretty good in Florence and I started seeing Internet hubs there as well. I used one next door to our hotel. It was 1.50 euro per 30 minutes and it was open until midnight. There were a lot of young people in there using the video cameras to talk to friends and family. They also had a USB thingy for me to put my SD card into so I could upload a few photos before going home. My family enjoyed seeing pictures of us while we were away.

One other thing I noticed is that you can fit more into the day than you think. Sometimes when you look at the city maps, it looks like everything is so spread apart. It didn't take very long for us to walk between sites. It didn't take as long as mappy.com said it would.

I can't think of anything else to add. Florence was a little bit of a disappointment for me, but worth a visit.

OK, now I found this trip report. I don't know which thread you are going to continue on, so now I have both!

You are right - everything is much closer together that it looks on a map - especially Florence (and I would imagine Venice to be the same). Rome is a little more spread out, but still quite manageable.

Thank you for the information about your hotel in Venice. I think it would be perfect to hear the gondoliers singing outside your window!

I hope there is more coming! Thanks for sharing,
Linda

I am getting ready to follow in your footsteps so reading your trip report eagerly. You mentioned that you were disappointed in Florence, that it was not what you expected. Out of curiousity, what picture did you have in your head? I am trying to prep myself for potential disappointment. Do you think if you had seen some of the museums, it would have made a difference in your opinion? Thanks!

Diane

No one spoke English? Like at the ticket counters? Or do you mean workers around the train station?

Your comment makes me curious, especially the "or didn't want to admit they did" part.

We are going to Venice in Oct. We will be coming to the SL train station from Rome. I am on a walker. Are there any porters or helpers there? OUr hotel is a block from the train station. How are the trains? Would you reserve before going to Europe? I really enjoyed your discusion but am now worried how we will manage. Does anyone know anything about Cortina? We have a week in the Alps there and want to travel to Austria, Switzerland, and Germany as side trips. Thanks

I'm sticking with this thread because it was my first. Sorry for any confusion. I don't know how this site works I guess:

This is a review of the third leg of my recent trip to Italy. I tried to keep it short, but it’s not.

Tuscany, Arrive Sept 1 – Depart Sept 5, 2006

Tuscany was quite beautiful. We drove from Florence to Pienza. Somehow, it took us six hours. The first thing that happened was that we turned north on 67 instead of south. The map I had was marked with 69 and 67 but the roads only mentioned 67. So, when 69 merged with 67, we went the wrong direction without knowing it. My friend, the navigator, couldn’t believe that none of the towns we were driving through weren’t on our map. Then, she looked north of where we were supposed to be and there was the town were we in. We turned about and headed south again.

Although we would see signs indicating A1, we were never able to get to it and get on it. So we took the winding S69 all the way down to Arezzo. We stopped in Arezzo, but had no map or plan. It was so blasted hot that day. We were tired from driving and after having quite a bit of difficulty finding the center, we decided to skip it.

We drove on and came to Lucignano. It was the first really beautiful little town that we had driven through. We decided to get out. It was much more our style; nothing like Arezzo. We parked and walked into the town. We walked around and everything was quite. We stopped at a store to pick up postcards and found the Val d’Orcia map Stu Dudley refers to so we bought it. We also bought a gelato in town. The church in Lucignano is quite beautiful, especially for such a small town. It’s odd how they have such grandiose churches in such little towns. We reluctantly left because we wanted to get to the farmhouse before dark. We took another wrong turn and went to Pienza the wrong way again, but we did get to Pienza.

Where the road, S146, bends in Pienza, we had to take a left and head south. Our farmhouse, Luna d’Oro was the first farmhouse right on the road past the turn off to Monticchiello so it was very, very easy to find. We had a splendid view of Pienza from the house.

To keep my post short, I’m just going to mention the towns we visited. We drove part of Stu Dudley’s drive through Pienza, San Quirico, Torrenieri, and the dirt road through Bellaria and Cosono. I personally didn’t like this part of the drive. I thought the view from S146 was just as nice if not nicer and the road was paved. We kicked up a lot of dust on the backroad. I’m sure others feel differently. I wish we could have seen the sunflowers in bloom. We saw a lot of fields of dried sunflowers. We stopped in Montalcino for lunch at Enoteca La Fortezza, the San Antimo Abbey (wonderful…must see), Montepulciano, Monticchiello (I didn’t like the pici at La Porta, but the Hazelnut gelato was delightful).

The next day we drove to Siena by going through San Giovanni d’Asso (where we ended up behind a pack of bicylers during a race), and we stopped at Oliveto Maggiore (church services were going on so we didn’t see much of the church). Siena was nice, a lot less crowded than Florence, but I don’t see a huge similarity. I’ve heard so many people refer to Siena as the smaller Florence, but I didn’t see it that way at all. We drove on to San Gimignano. Then the trouble started. For some reason, we couldn’t find our way home. After all that driving and finding everything with little difficulty, we got lost, and it was dark. We finally figured out what road we were on and knew what road we wanted to get to, but again, we couldn’t get there. How can it be so hard to get on the highways? We were trying to get on S2, but didn’t quite make it for many miles.

We stopped and asked for directions in some little town. The man didn’t speak any English, but I understood everything he was telling me to do and we got back on the right path and finally on S2. It was weird, we spent a lot of time trying to find out way and we never strayed far from Siena. We had gotten off track just outside of Siena. But, we made it and stopped in Pienza to join the festival that was going on. By the time we got there, the food stands had closed down, but there was a band playing and the people were dancing. It was a lot of fun.

The next day we drove to Cortona and got lost at least twice on the way. Our problem always occurred in the middle of the towns. We’d inadvertently take the wrong turn. We wanted to take S71 somewhere around Chiusi, but we ended up on some backroad that cut up through the country. No big deal, it just took a lot longer to get there. Cortona had pretty many people there, but it wasn’t overly crowded. We decided to drive back through Lucignano because we had enjoyed it so much.

The last day, we drove up to La Spezia. Since we had done so much driving the days before, we stuck to the main highway. By then, we were better at doing so and we didn’t get lost at all. We made a quick stop in Pisa for the leaning tower and drove on to La Spezia where we dropped off our car, took a taxi to the train station and hopped a train to Manarola.

You can cover a lot of ground in a short period of time in Tuscany. Although we drove a lot, we also stopped in a lot of towns and walked around quite a bit. I was surprised by what we could do in the time we had. We did not tour any wineries nor drink much wine. I don’t drink, not even in Italy. I had two glasses during the entire trip.

My suggestions for people driving, or just visiting Tuscany, learn the words for left, right, north, south, east and west. Left = Sinestra, right = destra, north=nord. I don’t know the others. Also, it wouldn’t hurt to know the days of the week in Italian. We saw signs for the festivals but didn’t know what day they were talking about. Some of the museums have their hours on the door and indicate what day of the week. We didn’t know most of them either.

Don’t be afraid to ask non-English speaking people for directions. We got help filling our gas tank, finding roads, mailing packages, purchasing train tickets, etc and many times it was from people we couldn’t communicate with other than a few simple words and lots of hand motions. Filling the gas tank was interesting. I’ve never seen a self-service gas station like they have. We should have those here. There were no attendants in sight. You put your money in and selected the pump you were on. Then, you filled your tank depending on the amount you put in the machine. The machine is not on the individual pump. I spent some time looking for where to insert my credit card on the gas pump. Then, a man pulled up to fill his tank. He spoke a little English. He said he would be the teacher. Then, when we finally got the money in and he saw that we didn’t know how to get the gas cap off (something the rental place surely could have shown us), he ended up filling the tank for us.

We had another man and his son drive us to a road when he couldn’t quite describe how to get there.

The funniest thing was when you would go to ask someone for assistance. They might shy away at first, then before you know it, you have about seven locals around you arguing about the directions they should give you. That happened a couple of times. We would just wait patiently until they came to an agreement on where to send us.

I would always greet the person I was questioning with Scusi, buongiorno, then “Do you speak English?” If they said no, I didn’t let them get away, it just changed the way that I communicated with them. I never had anyone ignore me or not try to help, at least not on the street like that.

I only had three unpleasant experiences. One in the post office and two in restaurants. There were so many more times when people were more than willing to help.

One other thing, while I was parked in Monticchiello eating my gelato in the car. We were looking at our map and deciding what to do the next day. I was looking at the view over the wall and noticed a sign that looked like it said the parking was for locals only. About that time, an older gentleman tapped on our window and kept asking if I was a stranger. I thought he wanted me to move the car. He stopped someone behind my car and they were all discussing us. I thought we were going to by lynched for parking in the resident’s parking area. Finally, a young woman came to the window and said that the older gentleman was worried that we were lost since we had the map out and he just wanted to help us. Wasn’t that nice?

Well, I deviated from a simple Tuscany trip report, but what can I say? One last report on Cinque Terre coming in a day or so.

Referring to questions about Florence:

I am not all that interested in art or history (shame on me) so I don't think the museums would have made Florence better. I did really enjoy the architecture of the churches in Venice. I like to see the art where it belongs, in the original buildings not sitting on a podium in a museum. I'm sure I'm the acception to the rule on that.

I think I thought Florence was a smaller town. It didn't have all of the cute doors that you see in Venice and Tuscany. I don't see what people see when they say the town is beautiful. It was colorless except for the duomo and you couldn't get a good look at that except when you were right in front of it because the other buildings are so tall.

My friend was unhappy as well and maybe some of that rubbed off on me. I don't know.

In response to the train station workers speaking English:

In La Spezia, the ticket window woman was wonderful. But, in Venice, the man just said no credito and motioned me away. To me, that is not helpful at all.

When we were looking for our train at the Santa Lucia station, the man at the end of the track pointed me in the right direction, but not at the exact track; there were two. I asked which one and he just pointed, but you couldn't tell. All he had to do was give a bin number in Italian, but he didn't.

Then we asked a man that was wearing a uniform and getting off the train. He said he didn't speak any English. But looked at my ticket and pointed out the train. Then he noticed that I didn't have my ticket validated and pointed back to where the first man was standing. So I ran back up there and validated my ticket before running back and jumping on the train....literally. Getting my luggage up that first step was quite a task and no there was no one around to help me.

At the Mestre station, I did not go inside. We only had 10 minutes and it took nearly that long to cross the four tracks to get to the screen. That was where I had so much trouble figuring out which train because we were going to Florence, but needed to find the train to Roma. I never saw a single Trenitalia employee along the tracks. I think we finally asked someone who was standing around there for help.

I also double-checked with my friend. If you are walking up the steps to the Santa Lucia train station in Venice, there is a ramp on the left-hand side, but it doesn't go all the way up to the top step. Someone mentioned that I was wrong. If so, please give better instructions to where the ramp is for other people so they can find it.

The thing about taking the train is that you are almost always in a hurry and carrying extra baggage and I think the stress can make things seem more difficult than they are.

We actually took the time to go to the Santa Lucia station the day before taking the train and it did us no good that time. But, in La Spezia we went a day early to buy our tickets and it did help.

The good news is, getting the train in LaSpezia to Cinque Terre and then from Cinque Terre back to LaSpezia and LaSpezia to Milan was not nearly as difficult. So, one bad experience and you'll probably know what to do the next time. But, maybe you won't have the trouble we had.

Even though Venice was my favorite, I felt like a lot of the workers there were unhelpful and somewhat unfriendly. The reason I didn't think they didn't admit to speaking English is because they were not even nice about not speaking English and they would said "I don't speak English" so plainly that I just didn't always believe them. Even the three policeman I asked for help (in Florence) said they didn't speak any English. Thank goodness I wasn't in any real trouble.

I don't expect everyone there to speak English just to be there to assist me. I just thought they were kind of unhelpful about it. Especially when I compare them to the people on the street that later went out of their way to help me even though they didn't speak English. You'll see some of that in my Tuscany report.