Which is better: to stay overnight in Florence and make Venice a day trip, or stay overnight in Venice and make Florence a day trip?
(We will be renting a car, and since Venice has no roads, we'd have to park the car some distance from the hotel and water-taxi in. I don't know if overnight parking will be an issue.)
My personal view point is that either is not great for a day trip. I think there is too much to see and do and when you factor in transportation it is too much.
I agree with the others. If you only have a couple nights, pick one of those cities and really enjoy it. They're too far apart and there's too much to enjoy in each city for a day trip.
How many nights do you have. If you have 4, you can spend 2 nights in each city.
Car in both places isn't great. And I think you can travel faster between the two by train ... plus enjoy the scenery from the train.
Jimmy, I assume that you will do this anyway regardless that you won't see much. If yes, Venice is a bit more expensive than Florence. Other than that, it doesn't really matter. As for the water-taxi, I hope that you mean water bus and not taxi. The vaporetto is the public water bus that has regular stops along the canals. These are quite inexpensive. The water taxi is a private boat much like a taxi. It will take you right to your hotel if its near the water. The minimum fare for a water taxi is 125Euro ($190) for up to 6-7 people. You can do either - just know the difference.
Lastly, do not drive a rental car anywhere in the Florence historical area. Its all a giant restricted zone and they will get your license plate with computerized cameras. BIG ticket. If you don't know what a ZTL is and/or you don't want multiple $150 tickets, don't drive there. The high-speed train between Florence and Venice is far more convenient than a rental car. Its city center to city center.
I understand the reasons for wanting to visit both of these beautiful cities, but even with the 2:45-hr high-speed trains, a Florence day-trip from Venice (or vice versa) would be tough because of the travel time involved. Driving a car would take even longer, considering the parking situation in both cities. If the best-case scenario is a 3.5 hr drive either way, you have to subtract a minimum of 7 hours from your day just for travel time. I suppose if you woke up really early and returned really late, you could walk around for a little while in Venice or Florence, maybe see a few of the major sites, but nothing in-depth. There are other day-trips from each of these cities that are much easier to do.
