One of three piers San Marco
Whatever your budget is, the tourist pass Venezia Unica is essential , you can ruin yourself in transit and museum if your not carefull. For € 60 per person you have access for 7 days unlimited vaporetto ACTV , for 24 € you have a single person access to all municipal museums valid for 6 months and with 9 € you have 10 entries in public toilets on 7 days. Total € 93 ( full price ), prices vary from a few € depending of the period of your visit during the tourist season .
There are two complete packages for tourist including almost everything for 7 days, even Wi-Fi, one at € 124.90 and the other at € 136.90 . Really! For no sweat at all, it’s the best.
VENICE – The prices are:
- Single vaporetto ticket for 75 min = € 7.5
- ACTV passes 2 days = € 30
- ACTV passes 3 days = € 40
- ACTV passes 7 days € 60 (a win)
- Ticket for the museums of St Mark’s Square (4) = € 19 *
- Add the 7 municipal museums individually ( 7) €€€ **
- Pass for all municipal museums (11) = € 24 (a win)
- Wi -Fi 24 hours = € 5
- Wi -Fi 72 hours = € 15
- Wi -Fi 7days = € 20
- Restroom = € 1.5 for a visit
- Pass for 2 access to restroom one day = € 3 (no win)
- Pass for 7 access to restroom on 7 day = € 9 (a win)
- P. Roma bus = > M Polo – 20 min – 5 to 10 € (calculate 10 to 30min in vaporetto and € 7.5 if your tourist pass has expired. Note: vaporetto line 5 + airport bus – 10 € ) (stressing)
- Alilaguna St. Marks Square = > Marco Polo € 15 – calculate 1:15 to 1:30 for the trips (best trip and best last goodbye kiss to Venice at a great price)
- Road taxi from P.Roma = > Marco Polo – 15min – € 35 plus luggage. (calculate 10 to 30min in vaporetto and € 7.5 if your tourist pass has expired) (worst goodbye kiss to Venice)
- Taxi boat , fast but expensive. + 110 € (if cash is not a problem for you… fast… best last romantic goodbye kiss to Venice)
All this is available on the website of www.veniceconnected.com , now called Venezia Unica.
- To purchase a service – Create the card first in the top right form .
- Select the desired package and add to cart (to see the rates, click on OFFER DETAILS in a product).
- You get your tickets to a terminal at the station or at the airport.
ACTV automated service at Santa Lucia Station is near the vaporetto stop at the left of the outgoing station.
Santa Lucia Station
Taxi , Vaporetti ACTV and Alilaguna Line
Arrival at Marco Polo
Marco Polo Alilaguna. The boat is not a subway, from St Mark’s Square calculate a good hour and a half before arriving at the airport , so do the time planning before your flight departure . You have a few stops to do , but that’s the best panoramic way, the less stressful and inexpensive to bid farewell to Venice… despite the “not so bright” smile of the Alilaguna cashier. Plan a 5 to 8 minutes walk from the arrival dock to the airport terminal … no treadmill ! Wheeled suitcases … a must.
- € 15 one way
- € 27 round trip
Via Liberta in train
Bus and road taxi. If you are close to the Piazzale Roma, you got different choices to Marco Polo Airport… € 6 to € 10 for the ACTV bus or ATVO bus, luggage included (calculate 20 to 25 min, depart every 5 to 10 minutes in peak hours) or € 35 for road taxi and luggage (more or less 15 min). Obviously you have to get there so calculate the vaporetto travel time, for example, from St. Mark’s Square to Piazzale Roma you have a 30 minute trip and make no mistake in the line direction. 😉
If to get to Alilaguna docks with your luggage is a sweat, think that vaporetto with luggage is hell, especially in peak hours ! Stay on the central bridge, you don’t want to have to sneak your way out whit your bags at Piazzale Roma, the stop is just before the St. Lucia train station … so mucho people on board.
I arrived by train from Lyon and Via Libertà is rather disappointing as an introduction to Venice, so I guess the farewell departure too… it’s less of a pastoral landscape compare to Alilaguna boat trip , obviously is if what you seek is a departure with a last look at Venice. The photo to the right is from the train arriving and the one below is the one I have taken on my way to the Marco Polo airport.
Departure from Venice whit Alilaguna
Museums
Difficult to understand everything in a place away from home. Validate a single ticket at the wrong vaporetto dock can become expensive, or buy an 19 € entry at the Palace of Doge and repay € 19 at Corer Museum and learn you paid double price is hum.. &?*%&$?. I became careful whit my purchase since an adventure in Paris, where the FNAC sold us The Versailles passes and tickets for the Musical Fountains to learn on the spot that everything was included with the passes … as the French swear … putain de merde . Now I pay attention to the different offer, trying to decipher the not so clear difference between tourist packages like museum passes.
*Be aware, the purchase of a single ticket in one of the four municipal museums in St Mark’s Square is valid to visit all four and that for 3 months. Tickets for these are not sale individually, if you only visit the Doge’s Palace … it’s € 19 . The big mistake of many tourists is to pay each entry at 19 € . After that they claim that Venice is expensive .
For 19 € you have:
- Doge’s Palace
- Correr Museum
- National Archaeological Museum
- Monumental Halls of Marciana National Library
** The other 7 municipal museums cost between € 5 and € 10 each. If you calculate € 19 for those in St. Mark’s Square and visit only two of these museums , the 24 € for the pass to all museums is already cover.
- Ca ‘ Rezzonico Museum of 18th century Venice
- Carlo Goldoni’s House
- Mocenigo Palace Museum and Study Centre of History of Fabric and Costume
- Ca’Pesaro – International Gallery of Modern Art and Museum of Oriental Art
- Glass Museum in Murano
- Lace Museum at Burano
- Natural History Museum
Restroom in Venice
This is not the first thing you think about before going for a trip, but if Paris have automated WC that are very modern and clean and America have what we could call the McDonald network… For example, in Montreal, on Sainte-Catherine street, you can cross at least four McDonald’s without counting on the Burger King, Tim Horton and others where you have easy access without having to buy or pay a Mr. or Ms. pee, Italy is different, especially in Venice.
- In trattorias and snack bar , access are for customers only, so you must buy a glass of mineral water or other , usually less than one euro at the counter.
Unless you are a pretty lady in distress (a lady smile is priceless for an Italian) getting a free access to the restroom is a bit difficult… since I’m rather hairy, I did not test the smile… I have seen tourist being firmly remembered the rule even at the Hard Rock cafe… and the McDonalds? Well, this network doesn’t exist in Venice, the closest is at the Lido or in Padua. A dozen public restroom is scattered throughout the Old Town at 1 € 50 a visit. So if you gotta go often then mark the locations on your card and get a tourist pass at € 9 for 7 visits over 7 days.
- Public restroom one access is 1 € 50
- Two entries pass on 1 day is 3 € ( funny package .. no benefit )
- Pass 7 entries 7 days € 9
- Bar and restaurant 1 € and less for a glass of water and why not pay a bit more for a Campari Soda 😉 – Cheers