Venice - the floating city

It was too ambitious a trip. I was wondering if I was trying to do too much in too short a time. We were to travel to 9 cities and 8 hotels spread over 3 countries (4 countries if you count Vatican City); take several flights; make inter-city train journeys in Italy; Travel by catamaran/ferry to Mykonos and Santorini in Greece.
The planning process had started a few months earlier and it had not been simple deciding where to go. Research was done about Mediterranean cruise; about cruise of Greek isles from Piraeus; about Aegean sea cruise from Turkey; about travelling within Turkey extensively; about visit to Spain; and finally doing a few European cities by Euro rail. We finally decided that we did not want to just touch a place while on a cruise but spend a couple of days in each place so one could get the feel of the place. In the end this worked out well.

Tip : All this would not have been possible if I had not carried a self made booklet. It had all the research papers; things to do at each place; way of reaching hotel from station/airport; all air tickets; ferry tickets; hotel vouchers; passport and visas copies. Then there were a lot of entrance tickets to places like Vatican Museum which we had pre-booked so those vouchers had to be preserved. The first page had a summary of passports and the details of all hotels with their phone numbers. When you have to fill up immigration forms at each destination, what better way than to have a summary of all four of us rather than pulling out the passports.This booklet made things simple as one did not have to go through sheaf’s of papers each day to look for one document. I will certainly repeat this booklet business on future trips.

If Turkish airlines had had their way, we would have missed out on Venice. The flight from Delhi got delayed due to technical snag and no one from the airline had any answer regarding how we will get a connection to Venice. One staff member told me that they had many flights to Milan from Istanbul. Milan? But how will we reach Venice, which was way away? Not to worry sir, he informed me, once you are in Italy, we will get you there. Thankfully he was not the coordinator so someone else took a decision and sent us on Lufthansa flight to Venice via Munich. We did reach Venice 4 hours later than scheduled but with one major hitch. Our luggage had to be left behind due to shortage of time. So, seven of us, out for a 15 day trip had reached the romantic Venice without any luggage, and not sure whether we would get it while we were in Italy ! We didn’t even know who was responsible – Turkish airways or Lufthansa? We did not even have baggage tags to claim the luggage. Interesting start to a holiday.
Venice (Venezia )






There are several ways by which you can reach the hotel from Marco Polo airport in Venice. But why should you choose a train or taxi or even a bus when the entire city is on water ? Private water taxis are the limousines of Venice: With their spacious leather-upholstered cabins, open-air seating in the stern , and private captains to chauffeur between the airport and your hotel, they offer an experience that you won't forget in a hurry. Just walk out of the airport and follow signs up the way to jetty – around 500 yards away. Not having any luggage was an advantage. Being a group of 7 we could hire the taxi for Euro 100 and be on our way. With the planes landing and taking off nearby, we cruised off in bright sunshine at 6 PM.


The thrill of being in Venice was compounded as our taxi driver maneuvered the water taxi into the canals from the sea. The cameras were out and they remained out for the next fortnight. We waved at all the other boats passing by. It felt good to feel excited. The kids kept jumping from one end of the boat to other. In around 30-40 minutes, we were dropped directly at our hotel ‘The Continental.’ We checked in and as we had no clothes to change, we were out on the streets in 10 minutes. The continental was well located at Lista di Spagna, just before the beginning of Strada Nova, one of the city's main pedestrian streets and unquestionably the most picturesque stroll which runs between the train station and leads to Rialto.
Tip: We had booked all our hotels near the train stations as within Italy we were commuting by trains. This should always be done in Europe as most metro lines and buses also start from the main station.
We did stroll down this lovely colourful street and bought some essentials to survive the next day. It was difficult finding essentials and basic clothing as it was a touristy area and you could get Venetian masks, souvenirs and expensive artifacts but sorry- no T shirts or other basic clothing. We then walked towards the canal and got into a public water taxi to go towards St Mark’s square. This public water taxi was like our blue line bus. Taking off screeching; applying sudden brakes and swerving from one side to the other.
For the sightseeing point of view Piazza san Marco or St Mark’s square is an important destination. A 17th century building, though it’s called a square, it’s a huge rectangle actually. This was a place to wine and dine and listen to musicians playing. Tourists were all over the place listening to live musicians and sipping their wines and beers. We managed to find a nice place to have dinner and later had the famous gelatos.
As we were off to Florence the next morning, we had done most of what is recommended to be done in Venice. It had been a long day as we had been awake for 40 hours (but for a few dozes in the aircraft) and we had a satisfying first night sleep of our holiday.

A lot of people had given me diverse opinion about Venice. Some had called it a very romantic city while some had called it a big smelly drain. Each person in our group loved the place. It was a lovely city to roam around, to have water taxi rides and to sit down for drinks and dinner near the canal and watch gondolas pass by. It was a great start to what we hoped would be a lovely holiday.