Venice Vapporetto

Mostly in Venice you walk, and you can walk anywhere. That said, we found our vaporetto pass to be useful for going to San Giorgio Maggiore to go up in the campanile (much less crowded than San Marco), to go to the islands, and sometimes just to more easily get to a site further down the Grand Canal instead of twisting through all the alleys. For instance after dinner on the Giudecca Canal we felt like seeing San Marco at night and just hopped on the vaporetto. You must have a map to see where you want to go. We got our passes online before we went and traded the printout for the pass at the vaporetto stop. They do run at night, but I don't think they run all night.

The island of Burano is gorgeous, and has beautiful hand made lace -- the best way to get there is by vaporetto. You can do Murano and Burano in the same day! Highly recommended my me! Jan

As to 24 hour service, not quite. There are night boats, but few and far between. They start early (before 6) and run late (like midnight) on many of the lines. We've always found the pass to be worthwhile. Otherwise a single fare will set you back €6.50. Definitely worth it for the Laguna island s.

There is some good information about the Vaporetto on the Venice for Visitors website. There is 24 hour service, but not for all lines. There is a separate Night line that runs from around midnight to 6am, but makes limited stops. I had a choice when I was there and chose to stay in Carnareggio neighborhood - but not far from the Ca d'Oro Vaporetto stop. We arrived during a transportation strike and were very fortunate that we were able to walk from the trainstation to our hotel with only 6 small bridges to go over (and maybe 1/2 had ramps for luggage) We also could easily walk to/from San Marco. Ended up using the Vaporetto for touring and not transportation, although my parents bought a day pass to go out to Murano.

In reference tovMurano and Burano... On the way to Murano, the Vaporetto stops at an island that is the cemetery. We got off and spent quite a while wandering the cemetery. It was very interesting. We were glad to see Murano, but it is very commercialized. Burano on the other hand was very quiet and enjoyable. We bought some very nice lace and linens.