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Tourist information: Venice

 

Venice
Learn about Venice's rich history. Visit the Doges' Palace, stroll through Piazza San Marco or take a trip to the Accademia.
This and more is possible for the virtual tourist.
Every year Venice holds some of the world's most important events. Events not to be missed, such as the famous "Carnival", and one of Europe's oldest film festivals, "The Biennale del Cinema".
Learn how you too can see these exciting events.
If it is a hotel you need, or help planning your trip, Venice has a wide range of charming hotels and expert guides to choose from.
This is the place to put together a vacation that you will
always remember.
Venice is a unique city in the world, not only for the beauty of its churches and its monuments or for the richness of its artworks, but mainly for its particular morphology and location: in fact, the city, whose shape resembles a fish, rises on an archipelago of about a hundred big and small islands, separated by numerous canals and joined by bridges. Venice is a “water city”, surrounded and carried through by the water of its lagoon. Therefore, there aren’t any roads for cars, motorbikes or bicycles, but only lanes, squares, waterways and canals… the city traffic takes place exclusively on pedestrian routes and on water!
For this reason, arriving and getting around in Venice can be difficult if you are visiting the city for the first time.

Getting around in Venice
There are only to ways to get around in Venice: on foot, between lanes, squares and bridges or crossing the water canals by using public waterbuses or boats which operate privately.

The best way to visit the city in order to discover its most hidden corners is, without a doubt, on foot. So, make sure you have a good map and don’t hesitate to lose yourselves between bridges, lanes and squares, away from more touristy routes, and you will be able to enjoy that magical and striking atmosphere that can be breathed only in a city like Venice!
In fact, getting lost between narrow lanes, crossing boisterous and piebald squares or having a rest in the most silent corners of the city can turn out to be a unique experience, bearing in mind that you know how to respect some of those “unwritten rules” that are very much appreciated by the Venetians, like, to keep on your right when walking down the lanes and not to have a long rest on the bridges!
But if you don’t have a city map, don’t worry! On the corners of the buildings’ walls you will find numerous yellow signs
(so-called “Venetian small cloths”) which will indicate the directions to be followed in order to reach the most important sights – St Mark’s, Rialto, Accademia – and the main arrival and departure points, the bus station Piazzale Roma and the main train station.
And if you really don’t know where to go, you will always be able to ask some Venetians who will give you information about directions with pleasure! If you are not in the mood to walk or you have little time to visit the city, you can use the ACTV public transport services which connect various points of the Venetian city centre and the lagoon islands. We suggest that you visit the city using a waterbus that crosses the entire Grand Canal that is overlooked by the most beautiful historic palaces of Venice, which are today important museums and exhibition halls. You can purchase the tickets from ACTV or at VE.LA. points.
Surely, more expensive than public transport are the water taxis, speedboats that provide a private transport service in the lagoon.
Another way of getting around that is very much used by the Venetians when they want to move from one side of the city to another without having to cross one of the three bridges on the Grand Canal are traghetti which are slightly bigger gondolas where you usually stand up and which operate between San Marcuola, Santa Sofia, San Tomà, San Samuele, Santa Maria del Giglio and la Dogana.
But the most romantic way to visit Venice from the water is certainly the famous gondola, a traditional boat of the Venetian lagoon, now rarely used by the Venetians.

Arriving in Venice

If getting around Venice is difficult for the non-Venetians, arriving in Venice is very simple, no matter what means of transport you have chosen! If you arrive by car, you should cross the long bridge Ponte della Libertà, the only connection between the mainland and the lagoon city. But don’t forget that Venice can not be entered by car,
so if you are arriving by car you should park it just outside the city and continue on foot. The simplest way to reach Venice is by train, which will leave you directly in the city centre at the train station of Santa Lucia. For the people arriving by plane, there are two airports close to Venice: Marco Polo in Tessera and Sant’ Angelo in Treviso, both directly connected to Venice.

Parking in Venice

It is not possible to enter by car and there aren’t any car parks in the city centre of Venice. If you are arriving in Venice by car, you should park it just outside the city, at Piazzale Roma or Tronchetto, which can be found just before Piazzale Roma.
Since the car parks in Venice, and particularly in Piazzale Roma, are always very crowded and rather expensive, it is advisable to park in the nearby towns of Mestre or Marghera, especially during the high season period, and then arrive in Venice by train or bus.
If you are arriving in Venice by car and want to enjoy the commodity of a private car park in Piazzale Roma.

Sestieri of Venice
Venice is divided in sestieri (administrative districts).
The word sestieri means a division in “sixths” because there are actually 6 districts: San Marco, Castello, Cannaregio, S.Croce,
S.Polo and Dorsoduro.

The subdivision in sestieri dates back to the city origins.
The house numbering is unique and progressive for each district: for this reason, the house numbers in Venice can reach numbers
of up to four figures.

Venetian Gondola
The gondola is a famous traditional Venetian rowing boat built in wood. The Venetian gondola has today become for millions of tourists, the symbol itself of Venice.
The gondola is the only boat in the world that is 11 metres long and weighting 600kg which can be easily manoeuvred with a single oar and by one person only, called gondolier.
But the gondola is also unique for its features: it’s asymmetric and therefore it always sails tilted to one side and it has a flat bottom which allows it to sail on the lagoon bottom of only few centimetres.
Eight different kinds of wood get used for its construction and it actually consists of some 280 parts.
The only metal elements in a gondola are the typical “iron part”
at the prow and “curly part” at the stern.