Paris to Venice to Florence

Wow! all of that extra expense for 4-6 hours in Venice. You won't see much. If you fly in to Marco Polo, there is a ticket counter in the airport as you exit for airport buses to the Piazzalle Roma. Once at the Piazzale Roma, you can walk over the nearby Grand Canal bridge and walk about 1,000' to the main Venezia Santa Lucia train station. You can store your luggage at the train station. This routing has nothing to do with Venezia Mestre. The night train route often ends there but you won't be on the night train if you fly.

A half-day in Venice will probably leave you hot, unhappy, and wondering why you bothered. The city is conjested during tourist season and getting around the island is a slow process unless you enjoy getting lost in its maze of alleys (which is guaranteed to happen.)
Bus is the basic connection from the airport to downtown, fast and relatively easy, but there are other strategies in guidebooks and tourist websites including water transport. The main train station is right on the Grand Canal in the city centre.

Larry, Actually it is cheaper & we were going to try to do day trip to Venice anyway. I know that is not much time which is why we were going to do tour there. We are staying longer at other destinations. Trying to do our best for probable once in a lifetime trip?

Larry, The website says Mestre not Santa Lucia....I am still trying to figure it out. This is the afternoon train from Venice to Florence that I am talking about. Southam, It will be late September, don't know if that is high tourist season or not but again feel we have to "see" Venice if we are there. We will just do our best. Thank you for replying. Donna

Donna I can see that you feel like you are under a football pile-on, and you won't want me to say, I'm piling on too. But I will try to help you salvage a little of a really rough day in Venice. It worries me because most people who try to blitz Venice leave and say that they hated the place. I have been there over and over, so much that I have locals waterbus tickets. The wonderful thing about Venice is to get away from the crowds but you will be plunging into the midst of the most crowded bits doing it the way you are. About Mestre. Which website is it that says to go there? Can you tell us which tour it is that you will be joining and where it starts from? And about the afternoon train. There isn't just one afternoon train from V.SL to Firenze. There's one at least every hour, and on top of that the .Italo has a bunch more, just as fast and even nicer. What time do you want to get to Firenze? Surely you will stay in Venice long enough for an Aperetif and ciccheti?

Donna, if you take the train you describe, it will end at Venezia Mestre. Mestre is the last stop on the mainland before the 10-minute train ride across the lagoon to Venezia-Santa Lucia. Some trains end their runs there. Any train continuing east from Mestre will be going to Santa Lucia. That's most of them. Just buy a ticket from Mestre to Santa Lucia. Should cost about 1.50Euro. My nephew just did this recently as his night train run from Paris ended at Mestre.

Spend a night in Venice! Admittedly we were there at Christmas and it was very quiet and wonderful. At anytime Venicd is best for wandering and getting lost and not having the stress of having to catch a train

I have had company & not much time to look into this. We actually have not decided on a tour yet. Looking into them. We do realize this isn't enough time in Venice but can't spend the night since we already have all of our apartments rented. Just want to take in as much as we can but have time to "experience" the neighborhoods, etc. That will not happen so much in Venice because of the limited time. That is why we thought the tour might be best. I think you have answered some of my questions. When I sit back down & actually try to plan some things I may ask more!! :)

No website told us to go to the train station...that is where we will catch the train to Florence (I believe). That is the station the one I looked for leaves. So I thought it would be good to go there as soon as we got in to stow our luggage (if there are lockers) & go ahead & purchase our ticket. We have to get to Florence in time to check into our apartment for the week.

Okay, I am tired & I haven't left yet! I see where we can leave from St. Lucia so that might be better (yes?). If so, what kind of luggage is available there? We will go from there to Santa Maria Novella which sounds close to our apartment. When we leave Florence we will take train to Rome Termini. If I have read correctly someplace we will arrive on tracks 5 or 6 & need to walk to track 26 or 27 to get local train to Trastevere (closest to that apartment). But, it will not let me book those yet so may have to wait next week to book (has to be 60 days or closer possibly). Any feedback to this scenario? Thank you so much.