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Tech Tip for Transit

This is NOT a question, but perhaps something that may help a few people.

First of all, you WILL get lost in Venice and the sooner you surrender to that, the more you will love this magical place. BUT . . . sometimes you need to be someplace by a certain time and can't just enjoy the adventure (for example, a reservation for a walking tour or you are supposed to be someplace for dinner at a certain time and want to know when you need to set out).

Here's the trick: There is a free app (I put it on my iPad mini) called Moovit. I had bought a SIM card from TIM for my unlocked phone and could use it as a WiFi "hotspot" for those times when I needed to get someplace. Allow Moovit to access your current location and simply enter the address (or name of many attractions) and ask for a route (you can either do this by current time or some future time). The cool thing? Well, Moovit will tell you where to catch which vaporetto (with a map that operates in "real time" as you walk), tells you what stop to get off at, and then maps where you walk to reach your destination. If you only want to walk (or if that is the quickest way to reach your destination), it maps that too.

We used this app in Rome too, where we needed to take an early morning bus cross town from near the Forum (where our Airbnb apartment was) for the Pristine Sistine tour. We knew when we needed to arrive and, using the app were able to plan when to get up in order to walk to the bus stop and get there on time. Hope no one thinks I am advertising (it is free), but it was sure helpful for us.

Posted by
186 posts

No. I expect it would work on a phone, but check the app store to make sure it is compatible, etc. Helped us get around Rome a lot (and saved our feet for the sights). We also timed use of our Roma pass to maximize use of the transit system on the days it was active - using Moovit helped a lot, for example, when we went to Eataly (for small gifts for people back home).

Posted by
32702 posts

Moovit works fine on an iPhone 4S under the most recent version of iOS 9