Venice, Italy
Posted by cpjanus on February 27, 2009
If you are traveling near Venice (i.e., within five hours) then I recommend visiting the city. Seeing the canals, twisted alleys/streets and old Italian buildings is a beautiful site. Its also romantic to have a nice Italian dinner at a bistro, located down a back alley, along a canal. However after 12-24 hours in Venice, you have pretty much experience it all (fr a visitor perspective). And its very touristy/crowded so you’ll probably want to move on to your next destination.
We arrived in Venice in the morning (via a flight from Budapest) and the next morning we hoped on a train to Florence. Our 24 hour affair was fun, romantic and just enough time.
I definitely recommend ditching the map and wandering thorough the Venicitian streets and alleys. Its relaxing to get lost in this city and since its small/compact you can never get too lost (…you’re bound to stubble upon on of the many “Per Rialto E S. Marco” signs).
FYI, the train station does not stay open over night. So do not plan on sleeping at the train station unless you want to sleep in the cold (and the nights are chilly even in August) on the steps outside. We had an early morning train and we unpleasantly discovered, at 1am, that the train station did not stay open over night. Luckily we were able to pay a hotel doorman 40 Euro to sleep in the lobby of the hotel (he even let us shower in the morning…but we had to be gone by 5am so the guests didn’t see us).
For general information about travel to Europe see here.
(FYI – I traveled in Venice during August 2006.)
