Tuesday 8 October - today we made our first visit to Venice bracing ourselves for the many tourists and inflated prices. To ease the travel we decided to take the Trenitalia.
Our first challenge was to buy the ticket at the 'speedy' ticket machine. In theory it did everything - timetable, price, seat reservations -but at an Italian pace ! We missed the first train due to slow processing so headed to the satin cafeteria for a refreshing coffee. Back on the platform the indicator said that the train we missed was running 20 minutes late so we had not missed it at all !
Venice is a 30 minute ride on the fast train - the White Arrow - from Padova and the entry to Venice is across a causeway linking the islands to the mainland.
Arriving at Venezia Santa Lucia station we looked for Tourist Information office - in vain - so we joined the crowds and headed on foot towards the Piazza San Marco.
The streets of Venice are beautiful but even on wet October Tuesday overrun with tourists and full of gift shops selling masks, key rings etc !
We found a small place for coffee which was quite dingy and although the coffee was fine it was more that twice the cost of anywhere else we have stopped on this trip.
Walking on we made our way through the narrow streets to San Marco Square - which was throbbing and slightly flooded. Rather than walk all the way back to the station we thought we would see Venice from the canals and took the water bus. This was a fun way to travel but 7 Euro each to get bak to the railway station where we caught the Geneva bound SSB train back to Padova.
Our first challenge was to buy the ticket at the 'speedy' ticket machine. In theory it did everything - timetable, price, seat reservations -but at an Italian pace ! We missed the first train due to slow processing so headed to the satin cafeteria for a refreshing coffee. Back on the platform the indicator said that the train we missed was running 20 minutes late so we had not missed it at all !
Venice is a 30 minute ride on the fast train - the White Arrow - from Padova and the entry to Venice is across a causeway linking the islands to the mainland.
Arriving at Venezia Santa Lucia station we looked for Tourist Information office - in vain - so we joined the crowds and headed on foot towards the Piazza San Marco.
The streets of Venice are beautiful but even on wet October Tuesday overrun with tourists and full of gift shops selling masks, key rings etc !
We found a small place for coffee which was quite dingy and although the coffee was fine it was more that twice the cost of anywhere else we have stopped on this trip.
Walking on we made our way through the narrow streets to San Marco Square - which was throbbing and slightly flooded. Rather than walk all the way back to the station we thought we would see Venice from the canals and took the water bus. This was a fun way to travel but 7 Euro each to get bak to the railway station where we caught the Geneva bound SSB train back to Padova.