2 couples traveling to Italy for the first time October 18-20th 2008, will be leaving Cinque Terre by train to go to Venice for 2 nites, has anyone been to Venice recently to let me know if the garbage strike is still on? It has been suggested to us to stay in Verona and visit Venice by train. Any thoughts on that?

As far as I know, there's no garbage strike in Venice - there is one in Naples.

By all means, stay in Venice.

If you are visiting Venice then stay in Venice. While Verona is nice, it is nothing compared to Venice - one of the truly unique places in all the world.

Just visited Venice in May and stayed on the Lido Island at the Mapabe-Best Western,nice place, but you need to take a water taxi to reach it from Venice proper.

With such a short amount of time, skip Verona completely. See Venice! Stay in Venice! Verona is a nice little city, but nothing to compare with Venice. The garbage problem is in Naples, unless there is something I've missed in Venice.

Venice is a jewel. If you don't stay there, you can't wake up to hear the Gondoliers singing. We left our terrace door open at night and we could hear the night music before drifting off to sleep. Then, in the morning, we saw the delivery boats running up and down the canals, followed by the Gondoliers with early morning tourists. You HAVE to stay in Venice.

I want to go back!

Hi P,

Venice, Venice, Venice

Venice, no question about it.

Venice of course!!


Monica

Hello pnardelli, another vote that you go to Venice. Verona is lovely but it doesn't compare to Venice. If I am going to be in Venice I want to be there so I can enjoy early mornings and the evenings after the daytrippers leave. I wouldn't want to lose the precious time training back and forth between Verona and Venice either. And I am sure the garbage strike you refer to is the horrible problem in Naples. Enjoy!

The train ride is only a couple of hours, so yes, it is perfectly doable.

If you have a long list of must-sees in Venice, particularly if it includes visits to several islands, I'd stick with just the one city.

If you are just planning on wandering about and soaking up the atmosphere you could easily do both - I did Lake Garda, Verona and Venice in one long weekend (2.5 days) and it was fine.

Definitely Venice. My third visit is coming up Oct 12 and I can hardly wait. I don't even have any must sees -- just glorious wandering around.