Venice

with five days, I'd suggest just staying in Venice the whole time. venice is a wonderful magical place with more than enough to see and do to cover your five days. the probelm with including the CT in your time frame is that it takes about 6 hours on the train to get there from Venice. Then you'll have to repeat the long trip over again to get back. We usually rent apartments in Venice. We have used these folks in the past with good results: www.veniceapartments.org www.viewsonvenice.com also gets good reviews. some folks like to use www.vrbo.com

5 days is one of the shorter trips we've ever been asked about here. Nothing wrong with 5 days. But with that kind of time frame, a few details that wouldn't matter so much on a longer trip become more important: one of those is, not counting your flying in and flying out days, how many days/nights do you actually have, on the ground, for sightseeing? If you can answer this, we can give better advice.

Well, there is a coast near Venice. It's called the Lido. It faces onto the Adriatic. But I bet you're looking for the CT-type experience, right? You might want to save that for a future trip, for the reasons given above. Happy travels.

Thanks - we will have five nights to spend in Venice - not counting flying days. Are there other day trips we can do if we spent the five nights in venice?

Day trips from Venice: Venice is in the corner of Italy, reasonable day trips include: the islands in the Venice Lagoon, Verona, Vicenza, and Padua. Travel time is a factor in day trips, that is, having a realistic estimate of travel times before committing to the day trip. There are sites that have train schedules, let us know if you're interested in those.

A boat trip to Burano might be a nice addition to your trip. Nice boat ride with beautiful scenery and a colorful little town to wander around, however, not all that different from Venice...just lots more color.

My favorite city in the area is Padova (Padua), about half an hour from Venice by train; make advance reservations for the Scrovegni chapel (frescoes by Giotto); only 25 people can get in at one time. Verona is not far away, either. Another great city is Ravenna, which has great mosaics. Padova and Ravenna maintain a small-city feel which would be a great change from tourist-loaded Venice.

Verona is an easy day trip and there is so much to see, it's one of my favorite towns. I thought Ravenna was marvelous for the Byzantine mosaics and a charming town too. But it's 3 or 3.5 hours by train from Venice. Not a day trip, but worth an overnight. I was less impressed with Padua. I went specifically to see the Scrovegni Chapel, and it was lovely - but you will use up a lot of time to spend a very short time in the chapel. Tips for Venice: 1. Take the Secret Itineraries tour of the Doge's Palace 2. Visit the Basilica between 11.30 am and 12.30 pm when the mosaics are floodlit. Visit the museum - it gives you access to the balconies of the Basilica - inside for great views of the nave and up-close views of some of the mosaics - and outside overlooking the Piazza 3. The Jewish Ghetto tour is very interesting 4. Download Rick's free audio guides of Venice and do them all. 5. Get a good map and a compass. Also spend some time just getting lost and enjoying it.
6. Take the vaporetto to Burano. I thought the island was kitschy, but the trip across the lagoon is worth it.

I would flip flop it. 1 day Venice, 4 days CT.

Aly's post really illustrates that there is no one size fits all. I would NEVER put CT over Venice, but that's based on my interests.

Kat, I agree with your decision to stay in Venice. There is plenty to see and do in Venice and surrounding towns. CT is too far away for such a short trip. Venice is perfect for wandering around, getting lost, and discovering gems.

What Ron suggested is what I'm doing in December. I'm only going to Venice for this trip. People here gave wonderful suggestions on where to go from Venice and I plan to do everything! Have fun!!!

I should have elaborated. We have been traveling all over Italy for 5 weeks now, I am currently sitting on my deck in Castelrotto. Of all the places we went Venice was by far my least favorite. In fact it's the only place we shortened our stay. This is why: it's VERY touristy, meaning everywhere you go it's a "show" to make a dollar from the tourist. Bagging and pan handling were terrible. The streets are very dirty and smelly. We toured a lot of stuff, grand canal, st marks', doge... I felt like I was at Disneyland without going on rides. I'm one or natuaral beauty and peacefulness-AND fresh air. :) CT was beautiful. We stayed at an agriturizmo, a winery in fact, in Monerosso. Hiked, swam in the Med,... Loved it! Hope that helps.

I should have elaborated. We have been traveling all over Italy for 5 weeks now, I am currently sitting on my deck in Castelrotto. Of all the places we went Venice was by far my least favorite. In fact it's the only place we shortened our stay. This is why: it's VERY touristy, meaning everywhere you go it's a "show" to make a dollar from the tourist. Bagging and pan handling were terrible. The streets are very dirty and smelly. We toured a lot of stuff, grand canal, st marks', doge... I felt like I was at Disneyland without going on rides. I'm one or natuaral beauty and peacefulness-AND fresh air. :) CT was beautiful. We stayed at an agriturizmo, a winery in fact, in Monerosso. Hiked, swam in the Med,... Loved it! Hope that helps.

We just returned from a two week trip to Italy and Venice was one of the highlights of our trip. Yes there are lots of tourists but after 4 pm when the ships are out the place is wonderful. There is nothing like it in the world. It was not dirty. The water was blue and the air was clean. Do you really think that a city with thousands of daily tourists is perfectly clean. I would spend the entire 5 days here a and do a few day trips. We loved going to Burano.

Venice is magical-just stay away from San Marcos from around 10 to 3. Get lost in the back streets. There are lots of day trippers near the main sites, but most of them leave by 5 and then the city is yours. Ride the vaperettos, the traghetto, go to some of the islands, sit in the piazzas away from the touris areas and people watch. Interestingly, the feelings Aly got when in Venice were how I felt in CT-too many people, most carrying RS blue books. Maybe the reason I didn't like it was I was there during the day and didn't have the magical "after the tourists leave" experience.

Bassano del Grappa is an easy 1 1/2 hour train trip from Venice. It's a beautiful small town in the edge of the Dolomites, with wonderful views of the mountains. It makes a great daytrip from Venice.

It's true that parts of Venice are crowded. Just avoid those places. Here are some photos I took of Venice this past May, many of which show you that not all of Venice is crowded. You can judge for yourself whether any of those streets look dirty. The begging and panhandling is concentrated (like everywhere else) around the major tourist sites. As for smelly, I've been there three times and never smelt anything worse than the occasional whiff of lowtide, and that's not as bad as the Seattle waterfront at lowtide. But then "smelly" is a pretty subjective standard, I suppose. Again, no one-size-fits-all when it comes to travel. I would be bored out of my mind sitting on the porch of a cabin in the mountains. :-) Happy travels.