Venice: Get around a city built on water

How do you get around in a city with no cars? Whether you’re on a day trip in Venice or you’re here for a few days, you might be wondering how to navigate Venice. It’s easy: when you’re in Venice, get around by one of these three options…

Vaporetto

Water buses in Venice are called ‘vaporetti’, and they make a great way to get out onto the water without having to splash out on a gondola or water taxi. Vaporetti move up and down the Grand Canal and run every ten minutes during the day, with waterbuses to the other Venetian islands – Murano, Burano and Lido – running every 20 minutes. They keep running through the night, with the Grand Canal stops picking up passengers every 20 minutes and the islands every 40 minutes at night.

Vaporetto tickets, purchased from vending machines at each stop or from newspaper stands, are priced at €7.50 for a single, which is valid for 75 minutes. You can also buy tickets on the boat if you don’t manage to get a ticket before boarding, but you’ll need to have cash, and there are day and multi-day tickets available if you’re staying for a few days.

Water taxi

A more glamorous option for travelling into Venice is a water taxi. There’s no Uber in Italy, but who needs a Toyota Prius when you can travel in style up the Venice Grand Canal in one of the city’s many water taxis? Water taxis aren’t the same thing as gondolas (which you can find out more about in our post on curious facts about gondolas); the latter are for sightseeing tourist trips and follow set routes, while taxis can be used for getting from A to B (from the airport to your hotel, for example). However, they’re pricey – expect to pay about €100 to €130 for four people per trip, and an extra €15 per person for additional passengers up to a total of ten people.

On foot

When it comes to sightseeing, you can’t do better than simply walking around Venice on foot. There are no cars, and wandering the city’s atmospheric streets is best done at walking pace because there are so many interesting details to take in. You’ll also be wanting to stop to take photos every other minute – those Venetian canals are incredibly picturesque, and each bridge is a new photo opportunity (check out our Venice canals facts for more about them). Finally, nothing beats the thrill of getting lost in Venice – you just never know what you’ll discover around each corner…