Third time lucky in Venice

We have just gotten home from a fabulous 4 night stay in Venice.  Ok, I read no one in their right mind goes to Venice this time of year due to how cold it can be, plus the risk of flooding but what I got out of that was there would be less crowds and I was right!  Not that the thought went into planning the timing of this, it was strictly due to stumbling over very affordable tickets!

This was our third trip to Venice, arriving the first time by cruise ship with an overnight stay on the ship and a wonderful introduction to St Mark's Square at night after everyone had left. Then we took a train from Pisa one year.  Stayed in a lovely hotel called Hotel Citta Di Milano for two nights and, again, had a fabulous time.  This hotel was beautiful and we booked it again for our third trip, arriving by plane this time!

It is easy to transfer from Marco Polo Airport to Venice using the bus service.  When we purchased the tickets at the airport, we were also able to buy our Vaperetto (water bus) tickets.  We were only going to be in Venice 3 full days, arriving late the first night and leaving early the 5th day, so we assumed we would have to get a 3 day pass and just pay for the other odd days.  There is nothing after 3 days until you leap to 7, but it was only 20 Euro more and that was quite a bargain so in the end the 7 day ticket worked for us. Meant we could just jump on a Vaperetto any time we felt like it!

Our room at the Antico Panada

So far so good. Then we arrived at what we thought was our hotel - which was very close to St Mark's Square, only to discover we had to search for a different hotel with no explanation why.  This took a while for us and I was very grateful for the fact I could make calls to Europe from my UK mobile phone and ask the hotel for directions.  Of course, I had to do this more than once.  Well, this hotel appeared to be expecting US as guests!  No explanation, but I just looked up the Citta di Milano and some reviews stated it is being refurbished and people were being sent to other hotels.  The Hotel Antico Panada was quite a surprise! Maybe not as grand as the one we expected, but literally only 30 seconds away from San Marco!  We could not have had a better location if we had looked for a hotel ourselves!

It had been a long day of travel and then wandering Venice until we located our hotel, so we went back to a restaurant that had taken great pity on us and helped us find the street with the hotel on it, which was right next to this restaurant, Al Chianti! So we went back there to split a pizza and call it a night.

Cheers!