Arrival
Rather than going by train, we took an EasyJet flight from Naples to Venice. It was cheaper and quicker than the train. The only downside was getting to Naples from Sorrento since our flight was at 10:15am. The Circumventia train runs early enough, but it does not go all the way to the airport, so getting there would still be difficult.

Fortunately, SITA runs a bus service from Sorrento directly to the Naples airport. The bus runs every 2 hours and it's an hour and a half ride, so we had to take a 6am bus - no breakfast at the hotel for us. It worked out nicely though; there was a bus stop in Piano, so we were hauling our luggage there when the bus went by on the way to Sorrento. The driver actually stopped and asked where we were going; he then picked us up and took us in. Didn't save us any time, but it saved us from waiting at the bus stop for 20 minutes. That was very nice.

As for the flight itself, it was delayed by about 1/2 hour, so we arrived in Venice's Marco Polo airport around noon. From the airport, you still have a good 45 minutes before you can actually get to Venice though. There are a few options - either a bus/taxi ride to the station on Venice's mainland (then vaporetto from there) or a direct Alilaguna water bus. We chose the Alilaguna line; it's 13 euro per person, but definitely a nice, easy way to get into Venice. And it stopped at San Zacharia, which was very near our hotel.

Hotel Campiello
Hotels in Venice are very expensive; rarely will you be able to find any decent hotel under 150 euro per night. We found Hotel Campiello online and booked a non-refundable room (which was considerably cheaper than normal) and it was still 160 euro per night. But we were very pleased with this place and highly recommend it to anyone.

A word of advice - print directions. I failed to (the one time I didn't), and even though the hotel ended up being just a short walk from the vaporetto stop, we walked for a while trying to find it - and it's very easy to get confused walking around Venice. Heather finally found it in one of our guidebooks and found the way; the hotel proved to be very convenient once we did.

It's located down a fairly quiet side street just off of the main canal-facing street by the San Zaccaria stop. It's extremely close to Piazza San Marco and in good proximity to the Rialto area too. The location is excellent. There's a good buffet breakfast and the staff were nice. We highly recommend Campiello.

Nothing Like It

Love it or hate it, there is nothing like Venice in the world. Just wandering the streets is an adventure; you are very likely to get lost at some point, and that's not always a bad thing. It can be frustrating, but it's usually fun and you're likely to come across something you haven't seen before.

For our first day, though, we stuck mostly to the main attractions. After getting settled in our hotel, we grabbed a bite to eat at a little bar close by, then headed to St. Mark's Square.


We got some pictures, then decided to buy the San Marco Museum Plus Pass - it's a 13 euro ticket that covers the Doge's Palace, Correr Museum, and one other Venetian museum (we chose Murano's Glass Museum). We bought the tickets at Correr (no lines there) and walked around that museum first. It was somewhat interesting - lots of Venetian history - but not necessarily a must-see (although Doge's Palace is, so since you have to buy a combo ticket, you might as well take a peek inside).

We walked around St. Mark's Square for a bit, then noticed that the line to St. Mark's Basilica was quite short, so we walked right into there. It's free to get in, but we later found that the lines get extremely long - we happened to pick a time late in the afternoon when we were able to practically walk right in. It's definitely a beautiful church, well-worth a visit while you're here.

Afterwards, we walked to the famous Rialto Bridge, the oldest of the four bridges that span the Grand Canal, and took a few pictures.

At this point, we didn't really want to plan anything out for the rest of the day, so we just walked. We went through Campo dei Frari, up and over the Ponte dell'Accademia (another one of the four bridges) all the way to the Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute (the church that lies at the mouth of the Grand Canal).


We ended our day with dinner at Trattoria Pizzeria Nono Risorto, a nice restaurant/pizzeria a little north of Rialto. It took us a while to find it, but it's a neat place - we actually came back here for lunch the next day.

To see all of our Venice pictures, go to our Picasa Web Album.

Republic of Venice

The morning of our second day in Venice was spent at Doge's Palace, the former residence of the doge. The doge was the chief magistrate and leader of Venice for over a thousand years (up until Napoleon conquered the region). This palace was his home and political center of the republic.




We thought the palace was fascinating. Some of the rooms were simply gorgeous, and it's actually quite interesting to see how the government worked under the doges. The palace is also famous for the Bridge of Sighs, an enclosed bridge that connected the palace's interrogation rooms to the prisons. The tiny window in the bridge was said to give prisoners their last view of Venice before their imprisonment. Unfortunately, the bridge itself was under repair while we were there, so the pictures aren't that great. However, here's the view from the actual window:

We consider the palace a must-see while you are in Venice.

Strolling through the Streets

The rest of our morning/early afternoon was again without a specific plan; we simply wandered around the city. We started in the San Marco region (by Harry's Bar) and made our way back to the Rialto area (home of a famous fish market, which at the time we got there, was clearing up - although a few fruit and vegetable vendors were still open):

We passed a number of churches and other attractions along the way; one the highlights was the Scala Contarini del Bovolo, a unique spiral staircase near Campo Marin - it can be climbed but was closed when we walked by.

A late lunch was next - pizza at Trattoria Pizzeria Nono Risorto (where we had dinner last night). We then made our way north to the Santa Lucia train station, then southeast into the Cannaregio area and finally to the Chiesa di San Zacharia:

To see all of our Venice pictures, go to our Picasa Web Album.

Our final full day in Venice was planned around a trip to Murano, one of the islands in the Venetian Lagoon. We planned it this way in order to take advantage of the 24-hour water taxi pass (expensive - 18 euro per person - but better than buying individual ride tickets, which I believe were generally 6 euro). We bought the tickets so we could take the taxi to the train station the next day. And it was a good thing we did - the only time we got checked for tickets the entire 24-hour span was right before our train station stop, so it was good to still have a valid ticket.

Anyway, we didn't buy the tickets and head to Murano until 11am because of this, so we spent the first few hours of the day walking in the Arsenale areas of Venice. The Arsenale area is home of the naval shipyard - you can't see a whole lot (at least where we were at) but the Porta Magna, the Arsenal's main gate, is quite cool.


The area is one of the residential areas of Venice; it's definitely away from the tourist crowds. It was very cool to see a little more of the residential part of the island. We walked into a few churches and walked through a daily food market; it's definitely just one of those things that are fun and interesting to observe.


There is also a large park in this region - the Biennale Gardens. It's a beautiful spot and worthy of a walk-through (probably more than we gave it).


At this point, we jumped in a boat to Murano. We got on near San Zacharia; it's about a 20 minute ride from there. Murano is famous for its glass factories - most of the well-known "Venetian glass" originates from the factories on this tiny island. We visited the glass museum (one of the options on the San Marco Plus Museum Pass); it was okay, but not really that interesting. The better idea is to visit one of the numerous glass blowing demonstrations put on by one of the factories; we saw one at what I think was one of the bigger factories on the island. It was a short demo, but it was neat to see; it took about 5 minutes for the guy to heat glass...
...and mold it into this:

After leaving Murano, we took the vaporetto to San Giorgio Maggiore, another one of Venice's islands. The main attraction here is the church - it contains some beautiful paintings and the attached bell tower can be climbed for a couple euros. It gives you some fantastic views of Venice and is much cheaper and easier than trying to climb the tower in Piazza San Marco. We got a lot of fantastic pictures from this viewpoint; here are a couple:



Once we were done here, we jumped back in the water taxi for a ride up to Santa Lucia and then down the Grand Canal. It's one of those things that you have to do; a gondola ride is probably nice, but you'll get the same view in the much cheaper vaporetto. The architecture of some of the buildings is just amazing.

Our night ended with a drink at L' Olandese Volante, an English-style pub in Campo San Lio, and an adventurous walk to find a restaurant for dinner. We ended up walking all the way up to the Jewish Ghetto, finally settling on a place in a quiet square in that area. We finished the evening back at Piazza San Marco and listened to the music from the dueling bands in the square.


To see all of our Venice pictures, go to our Picasa Web Album.