Getting to Venice...

The train is your best option for getting around Italy and getting to/from Venice. I have driven in Europe, but I never felt the need to drive in Italy over several trips - the train network is fantastic. Buses also get you elsewhere. The only place I'd personally want to drive in Italy would be somewhere like rural Tuscany.

But...you CAN drive to Venice if you really want to. But you have to park in a garage at Piazzale Roma (not too far from the train station), then get around Venice by boat or on foot.

Where are you coming from? Trains are generally the best way to get around large cities in Italy so I would consider dropping off a rental and training to Venice or dropping off the rental car there if you're not going to be using it for a while.

You schedule and itinerary are completely up to you but I would arrange all locations that need a rental car in a chunk, rent a car for that period and then drop it off rather than try and drive in large cities.

Enjoy,
=Tod

Where are you coming from is the first question? Are you flying into the airport in Venice? Or arriving from another location? There are parking garages just across the bridge, and they cost about 30€/ day. You can google Venice parking and see the locations at Piazzale Roma and Tronchetto.

https://europeforvisitors.com/venice/articles/arriving_in_venice_by_car.htm

We stayed in a hotel right across from Mestre treinstation. So our car was parked at the hotel. We took the train everyday from Mestre to St.Lucia. I think (at least in 2021) the hotel allowed people not staying at the hotel to park at the hotel at a fee if it was not full. But that might have something to do with the fact that there were still travel constrictions and it was not ‘busy’ in Venice at that time (which we really enjoyed as we got to see everything we wanted without the crowds and fully enjoy the beauty of Venice).

At the end of the bridge that terminates at Santa Lucia there are huge parking decks.

You must have bought the worst Venice guide ever published if it doesn't tell you anything about high speed trains vs parking garages on the islands and on the mainland.

May I suggest a guy named Rick-something? I'm positive he warns his readers that the parking close to Piazzale Roma Square are always more expensive than those on the Mainland.
In case you decided to drive to Piazzale Roma, be aware that there are 3 speed traps on the causeway from Mestre and that the leeway is only 5 kph over the posted limit.

A few years ago we drove in from Croatia, parked and overnighted in Mestre, and took the train over to the island and back. It was pretty easy.