Italy – Venice from the Vaporito

Our first time in Italy. Our daughter, Michelle, ‘Mitch’ had a scheduled event in Rome towards the end of May, 2016, so Grima and I decided it was time we did Italy. We headed over there the last week of April to give us time to see some of the country before winding up in Rome. Our schedule: fly into Venice, rent a car, do Venice, then Verona, then Modena (to visit with a childhood friend of Grima’s from Chile), onto Cinque Terre, down to Tuscany, up to Florence and finally down to Rome. An ambitious plan for the 30 days there.

So, our first view of Venice is defined by water. There is no vehicular traffic on the island of Venice, so most all cars end up in the Tronchetto parking garage at thirty Euros / day. From there, purchase vaporito passes, best by the multi-day, so forty Euros each for the three days we’ll be here.

This is the vaporito, or water taxi that is the primary source of transport in Venice. Think of it as the local bus. Quite efficient, but during tourist season gets pretty crowded. But one gets acclimated to it pretty quickly. One big reminder – whatever you do don’t forget to swipe your pass at the sensor post prior to entry. If you get caught with an un-validated pass on board, no excuses, but a hefty fine. We forgot to swipe once but lucked out and no one checked us. But they did on the next trip, where, fortunately we were ‘legal’.

I think this beats out our RV – but I wouldn’t want to pay for gas.

This isn’t what I expected coming into Venice, but, hey, they need to power the city somehow. I believe it’s on the Island delle Tresse across the bay.