I am just starting to plan a driving trip through northern and central Italy (and possibly a few other places).

I want to go to Venice, but I will be driving a brand new convertible that I am picking up in Germany, and I will be overprotective of the car.

Are there any hotels with good safe parking at the hotel?

Thank you.

There's no parking in Venice, hotel or otherwise, except for the area where the road ends that comes from the mainland along the narrow causeway and ends near Piazzale Roma. All vehicles have to pull up, park or turn around, and it gets crowded - you'd have a heart attack a minute about your new car.

If you spend a lot of time and energy in Venezia-Mestre you might find a hotel with a backlot and, if you're nice to someone, a protected corner etc. Mestre is the industrial port city of Venice, trucks and cranes and freighters etc., it's up the causeway a bit and hotels are usually cheaper than in Venice proper. The train takes ten minutes from Mestre (which is on the international through-line) to Venezia Santa-Lucia, the terminus station near the Grand' canal.

There are other ways, you'd have to familiarize yourself with the area and finagle a road that comes in from the East down into the area of Jesolo, that side of the lagoon, then you'd take a boat down into Venice. Get a really good map and research this angle, it probably is the only one that makes sense.

Just a hint: Italians tend to be nuts about automobiles. If you give someone a spin around the block in your new car, and tip them, they'll be likely to defend it with their lives. Worth a try if you go about it in a nice way.

Good luck!

WK

The one time I was in Venice in the middle of a driving trip we left our car in one of several garages across from the Mestre train station. They were multi-storied garages with 24 hour attendants and there were at least two or three of them in the block by the train station. And it was quite cheap too, about 5€ for 24 hours (that was in 2002). We left are car there for three days and took the train into Venice. We choose to stay at a hotel in Venice rather than Mestre which was horribly ugly and dull. You could stay at a hotel in Mestre with a parking lot (there were several) but I don't see how that would be any safer for the car and you'll enjoy yourself more if you spend the nights in Venice itself.

The parking at the end of the causeway is more expensive (20-26e) depending on how close or far from the vaporetto ticket booths you go. But they are guarded and I saw lots of nice cars there.

Thanks for the help. I agree, I do not want to stay in Mestre. It sounds like there are options, as long as I don't get compulsive about my car.

We did the same thing as Isabel. We had a brand-new car and felt that it was safe in the Mestre parking structure. Just make sure that nothing is visible when you lock the car.