RECAP 2011 - Venice - Floating through the City of Water

Arriving at the train station from Rome, we took a water bus to our hotel. The nearest 'water bus stop' to our hotel is Arsenale. In the water bus, you can choose to sit on the seats or stand outside to enjoy the  views of Venice on our right and left.

Our view from our hotel!

The gondola - an experience not to be missed while in Venice. Before we arrived, I read somewhere that it cost about 60-90 pounds per person on a gondola ride. The entire group has agreed that its too expensive an unnecessary experience. We rejected every gondola man that approached us, but on one of the days, we saw a rather grand and interesting gondola, and just stood there looking when another couple ride on it. Just for fun, we enquire how much it will cost for the 6 of us, and in my mind I was thinking, if we can bargain it down to 200 for the entire group, will go for it.  But hey, lo and behold, its only a 80 pound ride for the 6 of us - about 13 pounds per person - there's no way we can resist. :)

We enjoyed the calm ride along the canals of Venice, looking at the front doors of the houses which opens out to the canals ( yes, only the back door open to the road). We see tradesmen arriving in houses on boats with machines and planks to do their work. It's really interesting ...

To complete all 3 form of water transportation , we opt to take he water taxi to the airport for our journey home instead of the bus. The water taxi is a smaller boat catered only for the 6 of us to the airport...as its smaller, it can go through the small canals and not have to stick to the grand canal route, hence cut our journey time by half. It was raining on the day we left for the airport (last day of our trip)...so the waters were a bit rough.