Venice Questions

[jodee]

This will be our first cruise and first visit to Venice.

 

We arrice in Venice and go directly from the airport to the ship. We stay overnight on the ship and depart the following day at 3:00pm. Our stay in Venice is far to short, therefore we want to be able to see as much as we can. Since we have an overnight stay, we would like to sight see immediatly after boarding the ship that afternoon. My questions are:

 

1. What are the hours of operation for the vaporetto? Fees?

2. How late does the cities night life usually last?

3. What are the normal weekday hours for local stores and shops?

 

Any help with the above is greatly appreciated. Also, we are open to any additional advice you may have to offer!

 

Thank you,

Jo Dee

[wwinfl91]

I will try to answer some of your questions and also give you a link where you can probably find the all the answers to your questions.

 

1. The vaporetto system runs 24 hours a day but not on all routes. Most cruise ships provide a special water bus service from the port to St Marks that usually shuts down late in the evening (midnight or later). They usually run two or more water buses that make the 20 or so minute trip a couple of time an hour during peak times. Venice is small enough that worse comes to worse you can walk from the most areas back to the port in an hour or so.

 

2. Venicians like most of Europeans tend to eat later then we do in the US so it is not hard to find restaurants open well into the night. The area around St Marks, restaurants and bars, should be open well into the night.

 

3. When we were there in 2003 we found many of the local stores don't open until later than we were used to (10 AM in many cases) and closed by 6 PM but the tourist stores tended to open a little earlier and stayed open later.

 

Here is a great web site to find out more about Venice.

 

http://europeforvisitors.com/venice/

 

A really good tour book with excellent maps is AAA Spiral guide to Venice.

 

Have a great first cruise.

[Hlitner]

We have found that Venice is two different cities. The city during the daytime is crowded with day tours and overflows with people. But, late in the afternoon most of the day tourists leave the city because they are staying in other places such as Mestre or Verona. Once these throngs leave, the city starts to take on a magical aura. We once came out of a restaurant at about 10:30 on a beautiful summer night and spent about 2 hours just strolling through the nearly desserted streets. It was almost eerie and very romantic.

 

Hank

[DALSAL]

Ive found a lot of info for our upcoming cruise which departs from Venice on tripadvisors.com ...you can ask locals anything.

[BrenGina]

I second the "AAA Spiral Guide for Venice". It is also a nice keepsake to remember your visit. No matter what you end up doing, Venice is magical.