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Trip report -- 4 days in Venice

We have recently returned from another fabulous trip to Europe, this time spending 6 days in the Berner Oberland and then traveling to Venice, where we spent another 4 days. This trip report will cover the Venice portion; I have done a separate report for Switzerland. Warning: I write very detailed trip reports, for my own record-keeping as well as for sharing, so if you're not interested in all of it, then skim away.

Background
We traveled as a family of five: myself, my husband, daughter (14), son (13), and husband's mom. We are a fit, active group except for my son, who is mildly disabled. He walks, but slowly, and tires easily, so when we need to move fast or far we push him in a stroller – or, for this trip, a jogger because we needed the big wheels for hiking in Switzerland. The jogger was easy to maneuver in Venice except of course for the bridges, but we scoped out our walking routes to minimize bridge crossings, and my son did a few steps here and there with only a slight amount of grumpiness (he'd rather just sit in the stroller and be pushed around, which is a pretty awesome deal when you think about it).

We traveled the last week of June and into early July, right smack in the middle of a heat wave for the first week (thank goodness we were in Switzerland for the really hot part). By the time we arrived in Venice, temperatures were a more tolerable mid-80-degree range with some humidity, but not too bad. We had just one brief afternoon downpour on one day; aside from that, the weather was consistently sunny and warm, but not super hot.

Air travel
We flew open jaw out of Montreal, direct to Zurich, and then directly back to Montreal from Venice. The outbound flight was on Swiss and the return was on Air Canada Rouge (codeshare). All flights were on time with no hiccups. I am still in awe over the wonderfulness of direct flights – a whole level of air travel stress that was gone, poof.

Accommodation
We stayed in a wonderfully luxurious apartment right on the Zattere, within a few steps of the Spirito Santo vaporetto stop. https://www.vrbo.com/6424548ha I will note that we splurge on our accommodations when we travel. We do spend a good bit of chill-out time in the apartment, so I always look for one with a good view and/or a balcony so that we know we are "away" even when we're "at home." We also need an elevator for my son, and I found that in Venice, this requirement pretty much means spending more. Not an issue, it becomes part of our vacation budget, but it does mean that we spend more on lodging than we might otherwise, and we cut costs in other ways to balance out the overall expense of the trip.

Our apartment in Venice was a lovely treat. Super comfortable, with big, old, beautiful furniture, huge sofas good for sprawling, and a view out the windows and terrace that is to die for. The host was extremely helpful and responded immediately to a couple of questions we had during our stay, and check in and check out were flawlessly smooth. Transportation was so convenient, with the Spirito Santo vaporetto stop right outside the door, and the bigger Zattere and Accademia stops a 5-minute walk away. The Dorsoduro neighborhood was nice and quiet for walking, plenty of restaurants and gelato stops, and we loved watching the traffic along the Giudecca canal (although the cruise ships are just freakishly out of proportion when seen up so close; no way should these things be traveling within a few feet of Venice itself). We did make the mistake of spending one evening sitting out on the terrace without bug spray and lost a lot of blood to the Venetian vampire mosquitoes.

We would totally stay at this apartment again and highly recommend it.

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Packing
We are carry-on travelers and followed our usual bag strategy: My husband has an eBags Weekender that he carries on his back, and he pushes my son in the stroller. I have a RS rolling backpack that I pull and I backpack or stack my son's eBags Weekender Jr. I also have a personal bag, a Tom Bihn Maker's Bag that has been everywhere and holds anything. I love this bag! My daughter and mom-in-law each had a roller and a small backpack as a personal item. For this trip, my husband also brought my RS Civita backpack, which carried my camera and a few small items on the plane, and then was carried as a day pack when hiking.

Transportation around Venice
We purchased 6-day vaporetto passes and used them like crazy. Especially with the stroller, we found vaporettos invaluable for covering ground and avoiding bridges. I will confess to going to Conad just down the Zattere from the apartment at San Basilio stop and taking the vaporetto back to the apartment because I didn't want to lug the groceries. So easy to just hop a boat. We also did a ton of walking, but to make things easier on my son, we would check our route on CitiMaps2Go and plan around the bridges. Not as much fun as wandering and getting lost, but it's what worked for us.

With respect to the jogger on the vaporettos, we had no problems and found the boat operators to be super helpful with getting on and off the boats, lifting the jogger up and over any obstacles if the dock didn't line up evenly with the boat. We found that even when the boats were crowded, passengers were respectful and helpful, and we never felt like my son was at risk of injury from the crush like we had while in Switzerland. We found that, for all that Venice the city was not built on a foundation of "accessibility," there is a lot of people power at work to make it be as accessible as it can be, and we found it to be very welcoming for my son and our family.

A note that I used the CheBateo app all.the.time while we were in Venice for vaporetto travel. It was an invaluable tool for figuring out what boat connections to take to get from A to B as well as schedule information. Very simple, but very useful.

Food
We love to eat, and after a week in Switzerland with pretty "meh" food, we were ready to find some good Venetian grub. We ate more restaurant meals than we had in Switzerland because we could – MUCH cheaper than Swiss meals out. We loved grocery shopping in Venice -- we found the offerings to be fresh, tasty, and cheap. Really cheap. We also had a pretty high gelato intake for the 4 days; coping strategy to beat the warm, sunny days. Overall, we found the food in Venice to be delicious, and we left with happy bellies.

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What we did
Day 1 in Venice (Day 7 of our vacation) -- We left our apartment in Muerren on the 06:36 train, so it was an early start to the day. We traveled with our BO passes to Brig and then picked up a direct train to Venezia San Lucia. I had prepurchased tickets for this train from Trenitalia about 3 months ahead of our travel date. As we progressed along the way, it became more and more obvious that we were leaving Switzerland and entering Italy – more luggage all over the aisles instead of stacked neatly by the door, more chaos over seat reservations, a higher volume level on conversations, unscheduled stops by the train in the middle of nowhere with a "we are experiencing technical difficulties" announcement. None of these were negatives, just quite a contrast with the orderly, regimented week we had just spent in the BO (I kind of preferred Italy, actually, despite my OCD tendencies that were catered to in Switzerland).

We arrived at Santa Lucia about an hour late, around 15:30, and picked up vaporetto passes at the train station. We got ourselves on to the 5.1 vaporetto which took us right to our Spirito Santo stop, where our host met us and checked us in.

After checking in, we took a walk around Dorsoduro and stopped for some snacks and drinks, then hit the grocery store to pick up breakfast food. Early bedtime since it had been an early start.

Day 2 – I had booked Secret Itineraries tours for all of us except my son, who wouldn't be able to do the stairs. On this day, my husband and MIL took the 9:55 tour while the kids and I had a wander around the St. Mark's area. My husband and his mom didn't have the greatest tour. It was fairly humid that day, although not super hot, but apparently hot enough – someone in their tour fainted in the very first room, so the tour had to hold up and wait for the person to be treated (she was fine). So they were late getting started, hot from waiting in that very first room, which is small, crowded, and airless, and then had to rush through the rest of the tour.

The kids and I had a nice stroll that included stops for pastries and juice/coffee, and then gelato and cookies (hey, I know how to keep my kids happy). It was early enough so that the area wasn't terribly busy, and in fact, for the whole time we were in Venice, I found it not to be overwhelmingly crowded. Maybe not so many cruise ships in port (we were there Tuesday thru Friday, so no weekends), or maybe we just got lucky, but the only crowds were on the vaporettos at rush hour, and those were manageable.

We met back up outside of the Doge's Palace and entered St. Mark's at 12:05 with our skip-the-line tickets. We were able to use the handicap access around the side, which was much easier for my son. The cathedral was beautiful – we were there when the mosaics were lit, and I found them amazing. I really enjoyed going up to the museum and seeing the mosaics up close; much easier to get a feel for the intricacy. Loved the horses, too, and the view from the museum terrace. We spent about an hour and 15 minutes inside. Afterwards, we walked a couple of blocks to Dal Moro for pasta-in-a-box that was cheap and pretty good (we were directed to a nearby shady plaza with benches to eat).

Back to the apartment for a rest, and then we headed back to St. Mark's (only one vaporetto stop from our apartment, so really quick and easy to get there) for our 5:15 skip-the-line tickets to go up the Campanile. Nice views; we spent about 20 minutes at the top.

Back down the elevator, and then walked over to Caffe Lavina on the Piazza for drinks and some music-listening. By this time of day, the square was starting to empty out (except for the pigeons), the music was starting, the temperature was cooling off, and the mood was definitely different from the daytime. We spent a very relaxing hour or more just people-watching.

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Day 2 (continued) -- We then took a boat ride up the Grand Canal to P. Roma just to see the sights and realized this was a mistake; still too crowded going in this direction. Live and learn. We changed over to the 5.2 vap and headed back to the apartment in a sudden downpour that cleared by the time we got off the boat. Had takeaway pizza from OKE on the Zattere (it was good).

Day 3 – For dinner tonight, we would have our meal prepared in the apartment by a chef known to the apartment owner. We met her at the Rialto market at 09:00 to shop for whatever we wanted to eat that night. This was so much fun! She spoke no English at all, but we got by, mostly by my speaking Spanish, her speaking Italian, and all of us doing a lot of gesturing. We picked out at least a dozen things to eat (never shop when you're hungry), including fish, shrimp, snails, chicken (for my mother-in-law), ground beef for sauce, pasta, green beans, tomatoes, mozzarella, artichokes, salad, and I can't even remember all of it. We just needed to pick up bread and wine later in the day, and she would do the rest.

My daughter and I then headed off to the Doge's Palace for our SI tour, which went much better than the one the day before. No one fainted, the tour progressed nicely, and we learned a lot. We also had a nice walk through the main floor after the tour; stunning artwork. Husband, MIL, and son walked while we were on the tour and apparently did not plan bridges carefully, because my son had to be piggy-backed across the Accademia bridge while some helpful bystanders assisted with getting the empty jogger up and over. For the record, I would have taken a boat.....

We met back up at the apartment and had a nice, big lunch at Taverna San Trovaso in Dorsoduro. When our waitress first came to the table and greeted us in Italian, I replied "buon giorno," and then asked her if she spoke English. Her "Of course!" response mortified me and will prompt me to learn more italian before I return.

We spent the afternoon in Cannaregio, wandering through the Jewish Ghetto and the museum, which I found very interesting, and then walking, window-shopping, and eating gelato along the Strada Nuova.

Back to the apartment, where we found Ada at work preparing all that food we had chosen. Dinner was absolutely delicious, a real treat.

Day 4 – I woke up early and decided to go for a walk. Left the apartment at 06:00 with my camera and had a lovely stroll for about an hour, taking some beautiful pictures with the morning light. I managed to hitch the wrong boat back to the apartment and took a detour to Giudecca, but eventually made it back for breakfast.

The plan for the day was to head to Murano, spend some time looking at glass, and then go over to Burano to walk around. We made it to Murano, saw some glass being blown, did a little shopping, and then went to the Murano Faro stop to catch the vap to Burano. Oh, my god, what a crowd waiting for the boat!! It was the only time all week where we couldn't cope. Just too many people that were going to try and crush onto the vaporetto, lots of tour groups, way too much. So we turned around, went back into Murano and had an OK pizza lunch along the Fondamenta Manin, then decided to head back to Venice.

We chilled in the apartment for a couple of hours and had an early dinner, cleaning out the fridge. At around 19:30, we headed out and caught the #2 vaporetto from Zattere and took it all the way around and down the Grand Canal. What a lovely evening cruise! No crowds, great light, perfect temperature. We really enjoyed this. We arrived St. Mark's at about 21:00 and spent some time walking around, listening to the music, watching the lights and the people, having a little dessert pastry. Beautiful evening.

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Day 5 -- Next morning we checked out at 08:00 and caught the 08:40 Alilaguna from Zattere to the airport. Not the most scenic boat, but it was easy for us and I didn't want to deal with getting my son into a water taxi or transferring him from the vaporetto to a bus. The Alilaguna was simple and direct.

We arrived at the airport plenty early for our flight and had no real issues, but we did find the airport process to be unbelievably chaotic for disabled travelers. My husband and my son were sent to a different part of the airport for security screening (every other airport has kept our family together), and the directions for me to find them post-security weren't clear, so I spent quite some time wandering through the airport looking for them (they eventually came out the employee security entrance). There is also a separate bus to get disabled travelers out to the plane, so my husband and son took that bus and boarded and the rest of us (including me with my son's luggage) eventually met up with them on the plane. Again, every other place we've traveled has boarded our entire family together, which we really need (it takes a village to get a special needs kid through the airport, believe me), but it didn't work that way in Venice. Won't keep us from going back, but hopefully things will have improved next time we go.

I do believe that much of the chaos is because the airport appears to be crazily busy with too many planes and too many people with nowhere to sit and no space available at any of the restaurants. I don't have any knowledge of this, but hopefully Venice has plans for airport improvement/expansion in the future. Or maybe it's a means to keep down the number of tourists.....

We had an uneventful flight back to Montreal and survived the never-ending construction detours on our way back to Vermont.

Summary
I fell in love with Venice. We had really loved Switzerland as well, but it was more efficient, more clinical, more remote. Venice has soul. Loved the beautiful buildings, the sense of reach-out-and-touch history, the little alleyways that go somewhere or nowhere, the sound (or lack of sound), the sit-down-and-enjoy-your-meal pace, the warmth of the Venetians, the light along the canals, the crazy, mixed-up architecture of St Mark's cathedral, the ease of getting anywhere.

I know some people think Venice is Disney-esque, but I didn't get that feeling at all. For me, it really was magical. We'll be back.

I need to add a big THANK YOU to everyone who has contributed information to this forum. I researched here extensively and asked questions when I couldn’t find what I needed. Your input was so helpful in making this trip a huge success. Thank you all for your time!

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315 posts

Deb, thanks so much for a lovely trip report! We’re planning to be in Venice for 4+ days in September...our third trip there.. and I really appreciate your insights. I stopped reading in the middle of your report to download CheBateo to my phone...so much easier than looking at the different routes!
Your family sounds amazing.

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218 posts

Thanks for the lovely report! Hope to get back to Venice in the future. Now to go to the Switzerland page to read that portion!

Posted by
1206 posts

What a beautiful, thoughtful, trip report! Thank you so much for the many details and insights! When reading, I kept thinking, also, that some of your experiences and new knowledge about how you all got around Venice with your son, and how your family was welcomed and treated (except at the airport!), could be very useful knowledge for families with anyone of any age with limited mobility trying to get around Venice. Vaporettos! The side entrance at San Marco Basilica! and so much more. Thank you!!

Posted by
13800 posts

Thanks so much for posting! I enjoyed finishing your trip with you, lol!!

What part of the whole vaca did each kiddo like best?

Posted by
32512 posts

That sounds like a great first impression of Venice! Your apartment location sounds great too. I enjoy being near Zattare too.

I'm sorry that Burano didn't work out... did you give any thought to waiting for the next boat?

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687 posts

Thanks for the nice comments.

Pam, my son loved riding the vaporettos. We were instructed to park the stroller right behind the pilot so as to be out of the way of passengers getting on/off, which gave him a great view of the “action” of driving the boat.

My daughter liked all of Venice, but probably most loved the food. She is an eater (both kids are) and likes to try everything. I think her favorite was the tiny snails swimming in garlic. Oh, and the cheese. And the pastries for breakfast. Fresh juices. Seafood cichetti. She was in heaven.

Nigel, I don’t think waiting for the next boat would have helped. That end of Murano was pretty jammed with tour groups lurking by the vaporetto stop. We couldn’t even get near the validation points to get on the dock. I think we just hit the wrong time of day (it was around noon or 1:00), where organized tours were making the transition from one island to another. Our boat back to Venice was not that crowded, so I think it was a matter of hitting the same direction as the flood.

Next time we’d either try doing the order differently (Burano first) or going to each island on separate trips either in the morning or later in the day.

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31 posts

Thanks for the information... I am headed to Venice at the end of September and will be using some of the information you provided.

Posted by
11294 posts

Great report - thanks for taking the time to post it!

Posted by
13800 posts

Thanks Deb for the extra information. What a thrill for your son to be right behind the pilot! And kudos to your daughter for adventuresome eating. Lovely family memories!

Posted by
521 posts

What a great trip! I especially love the part about getting to shop with the chef and having an amazing meal prepared with what you bought!

Posted by
967 posts

Enjoyed reading this. Venice may be my favorite city in the world. And Mrs. Ada has cooked for us on two different trips! She's quite amazing.

Posted by
687 posts

Yes! We loved our dinner with Ada! She is so sweet (kept cupping my son's cheek, saying, "ah, bambino," which he loved). Shopping was a hoot -- I'm not sure she is used to people who like EVERYTHING. We kept saying, yes, some of those, yes, those too.... We could have brought home the whole market. Fun to try and figure out the stuff we didn't recognize, given the language mix. And the dinner itself was absolutely delicious.

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1059 posts

I am so impressed with your trip report. So often I see people focusing on the negative parts of their trips. When that happens, it is so easy to forget all the positive things that occurred. I have friends that have used the negative comments that people have made as a justification on why they won’t go overseas or won’t go to a particular country. I really like your attitude. You have given your family a lifetime of memories. While I think that we can learn from people’s bad experiences, I think we can learn far more from the positive experiences and would love to see more trip reports like yours that highlights the positive aspects of traveling. Well done!

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5187 posts

Deb,

Thanks for sharing your wonderfully detailed trip report with us!
I truly enjoyed reading about your time in beautiful Venice and now I want to return!

What a special treat to have a private chef cook a delicious dinner for you and your family! I’m very intrigued... What did Ada prepare for you? Did you help with the preparation and pick up some cooking secrets?

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687 posts

Priscilla, we had
Appetizers:
snails
fresh mozzarella, tomatoes and basil
Artichokes
Breadsticks
Olives
There were a couple other things that I’m forgetting, too

Pasta with meat and tomato sauce

Main course:
Broiled fish (not sure what kind; my Spanish and her Italian did not overlap on fish species, but it was mild and yummy, with just olive oil)
Shrimp
Chicken cutlet for MIL who doesn’t like seafood
Sautéed green beans
Green salad
Bread with olive oil

And I know I’m forgetting a few things.... it was a feast.

I confess that I hate cooking, which is a problem because I love eating. When I win the lotto I will have a chef. For our meal, Ada disappeared into the little back kitchen while we had drinks on the terrace, and then a while later the dishes started coming out.

Amazing that we in the US think we need these giant “gourmet” kitchens to cook and yet this delicious feast came out of a tiny old Venetian kitchen.

Posted by
2281 posts

hey hey deb
loved the idea about the shopping and chef ada. does she have a website?
aloha

Posted by
687 posts

Our dinner with Ada was arranged by our apartment owner, so I don’t have direct contact info. Her name is Ada Catto.

Posted by
7123 posts

Thank you, Deb, for posting your trip report. Venice is such a special, magical place - glad you thoroughly enjoyed it! And, those gelato stops keep everyone in a good mood! ; )

Posted by
5187 posts

Hi Deb,

Thanks for replying to my question!

Sounds like a wonderful meal!

When I win the lotto I will have a chef.

Ha, ha! I love that idea too!