There’s no place like Venice. Gondoliers steering their polished black craft while belting out “O Sole Mio,” picturesque bridges arching over narrow canals, Saint Mark’s Square… But reaching Venice from California isn’t easy. It’s gonna be a long day. I found a way to make it even longer, opting to take “the slow boat to Venice.”
Allow me to explain. There are multiple options for getting from Marco Polo airport to Venice. One option is a shuttle boat service that stops at the airport and various islands and points of interest around Venice. It’s called a “water bus.”
The Water Bus
The water bus is a great deal. For 15 euro, you can get from the airport to Venice and get a glimpse of other places along the way. I liked this idea. Maybe some of these places would look like they’re worth returning to for a visit.
Another option for getting to Venice was to take a water taxi. At 120 euro per one-way trip, though, I was able to rationalize lots of good reasons to take the water bus instead.
We could have taken a regular bus to get there, too, but who wants to get to Venice on a bus? That just seemed wrong. (If I had done my travel homework more thoroughly, though, it wouldn’t have seemed wrong at all).
By the time we landed at Marco Polo airport, we’d been traveling for 20 hours. We were tired. WAY tired. Zombied-out-due-to-lack-of-sleep tired. Makes me tired right now, just thinking about it.
The water bus was right on time. We hopped on with ten other people and took off, headed for the nearby island of Murano. Venice was visible across the water, off to our right, but we were headed to Murano. We couldn’t help but think how nice it would be to go straight to Venice and our hotel instead.
Slowly Slowly Slowly…
I don’t know why, but for some reason, the water bus goes very slowly. We were barely moving. I confess that I had not factored this into my pre-trip planning.
While we were heading slowly, slowly, slowly to Murano, water taxi’s whizzed by us at high speed. They were taking travelers from the airport, not to some far-off water bus stop, but directly to their hotels. That thought stung a little.
When a water taxi whizzed by, my usually-patient Better Half would give me a look that said, “Look at those people in that water taxi. Ten minutes from now they’ll be at their hotel, checking in, flopping down on a soft bed and going to sleep. Meanwhile, we’ll have moved even FARTHER AWAY from where we want to go, just to save a few euros.”
She can say quite a bit with just a look. It’s really something.
Murano and Lido Island
Eventually, we made it to Murano – a “must-see” in many travel books. The famous Murano glass is made here, and you can visit the glassworks. Murano glass is beautiful, but much of it is too ornate for our taste. We could see the glassworks from the boat. Kind of interesting.
We left Murano and crawled back out into open water. Next stop: Lido Island. Slowly, slowly, slowly we made our way from Murano to Lido Island. Lido Island looked pretty neat. Quite a few people disembarked. Note to self: Lido Island might be a nice place to stay when visiting Venice.
From Lido Island, we finally started heading toward Venice. Two more stops and we’d be at our stop near Saint Mark’s Square. By this time, my travel planning skills were looking highly questionable. I’m putting this very delicately. Put yourself in my usually-patient Better Half’s position, and you might see how all was not well at this particular time.
But the worst might be yet to come. Taking the water bus was the easy part of the plan – the part that I thought was low-risk. The risky part would be finding our way from the water bus stop to the hotel.
Risky Business
In between its canals, Venice is a tangled warren of alleys and passageways. They snake around in all kinds of crazy directions. No grid of organized, well-identified streets here. Not even close.
And unfortunately for me, our hotel was deep in the bowels of the city, far from the nearest water bus stop. We’d have to shlep our bags all the way from the water bus stop to the hotel – if I could find it. And now it was getting dark.
See? Risky. Scares me now just thinking about it, even though it’s in the past!
As we approached our stop, I was reminded of a well-known travel tip. When traveling for leisure, time is a precious resource. Travelers should carefully consider spending a little more money on an option if it saves valuable vacation time. You know, that’s a really good travel tip.
To be continued…
