Where to stay in Venice
 

We are looking for an area to stay in Venice that will be easy to get a taxi back to the airport because we leave so early and want to avoid traffic, etc. This is the last leg of our travel in Italy and want to make the best decisions for hotels in Venice, possibly in a scenic or central area (quiet maybe or not?) maybe near good restaurants, etc.

Day 14
Drive to Venice from Cinque Terre (4 hours 15 mins.)
- Return car to bus station
- We have a hotel booked, but would like suggestions for where to stay and since we have to leave so early 4-5am somewhere to catch a taxi back to the airport easily and quickly.

- Explore Venice
Day 15
Explore Venice
Day 16
Leave very early to make 7am flight (arrange taxi to airport from hotel)

Thanks for any new suggestions you may have!!!

You understand that there are no cars (taxis) in Venice proper, right? Not even bikes. The only way to get around besides walking is by boat. The bus station is the end of the line for cars and land taxis.

You might want to look into a water taxi - probably not cheap:

http://europeforvisitors.com/venice/...ater-taxis.htm

While it's possible to get back to the bus station and take a regular taxi from there, that early in the morning it might not be fun to deal with transferring luggage, etc.

You could get a hotel right by the bus station - personally, I wouldn't. You could stay on the mainland (e.g. Mestre) so you can just take a conventional taxi. I wouldn't do that except maybe for the last night. Staying on Venice itself is important to experience it at night and in the morning.

If you want a taxi (aka a car) vehicles come to Piazzale Roma. You can check a map to see how far your hotel is from there. Water taxis - I'm not sure whether they run all night but imagine they do. Alilaguna service doesn't run that early (first one at 6am). Buses seem to run early so that's another option if you want.

If that's a 7am flight out of Europe(?), you'd want to be at the airport probably by 5am at the latest. If it's a flight within the Schengen zone (within Europe) maybe you can get there a tad later.

As others have said, there are no taxis in Venice. You have two options:

- You take the vaporetto (or you walk) to Piazzale Roma and take a taxi from there to the airport.

- You take the Alilaguna waterbus to the airport. The Blue Line departs at 3:50 from San Marco and arrives at 5:09 at the Airport. See here for the timetable: http://www.alilaguna.it/en/linea-blu/blu-timetable

- You take a watertaxi to the Airport. I found this company reliable: http://www.motoscafivenezia.it/eng/

A water taxi is by far the fastest, the most reliable (what happens if you miss the Alilaguna?) and the most comfortable way to travel. Depending on where you board it, travelling time to the aiport will be 30 to 40 minutes. The fare will be around 110€ per boat (up to six persons). The fare will be displayed when you make the online reservation.

An important point is the microlocation of your hotel. Is it close to a vaporetto stop? Is it directly accessible by water taxi? Or is it in easy walking distance to Piazzale Roma?

Look carefully on the hotel's website. Usually they write a few word about location and access. If not, forget the hotel. Look on the map and check the vaporetto and Alilaguna stops and lines.

E.g., the last time we stayed in Venice, we chose the Boscolo Autograph hotel right on the northern shore of Cannaregio. From its front door, the water taxi needed just 20 minutes to the aiport. BTW, it was a beautiful hotel and we could catch a good rate, since we were travelling in November.

You need to weigh the trade-off between an access to where you want to spend time through out the stay vs. one-time convenience of getting to the airport early. A frequent visitor, who has been to all the central location attractions, would stay elsewhere, but it can be a poor choice for infrequent or first time visitors. If the water-taxi cost is not an issue, you can stay almost anywhere. However, remember that canals can get impassable with high water as well as temporary blockages due to construction or cargo operations. You can still use a water-taxi. You just have to walk further away to meet your water-taxi.

For those coming from places where Venice departure means an early morning flight, one way to eliminate this central local vs. airport access trade-off in Venice is to land in Venice and depart from elsewhere. They can use a slow, cheap way to get to anywhere in Venice without tight flight time constraints. I can't tell you how many other travelers I met in Italy, mostly American, who landed in Rome and left from Venice and hadn't figured out how to get to the Marco Polo airport for their 6 a.m. flight. It was not that they couldn't do it. It was nearly always, "Why didn't we think of that?"

There are several hotels out at the airport and with such an early start I think I'd want to be out there. You can still spend the evening in Venice and take a bus, taxi or vaporetto out to the airport to get some sleep.