Why would you need to change the 100 Euro note? Nobody ever said tht Venice is inexpensive!

(Fortunately, the bathrooms in the hotel accept all Major Credit Cards. For those of you who are status-driven, they also accept all General Credit Cards.)

Come to think of it, in the world of status, does a Private Something outrank a General Something?

Shhhh - don't tell them I'm here ...

I looked at hotel room prices for Nov 19-20 and the Ai Mori is full! :(

I saw a hotel in Lido called "Le Boulevard" that is designated as 4 stars and wants 39 euro for a single room including breakfast!. Is it a "too good to be true" kind of deals or is there a catch here?
What's the avg cost of water taxi to go from Lido to Piazza San Marco?

Apirchik, it is not too good to be true. Lido has sky high prices during the summer but because it is basically a beach area they drop tremendously in the off season.

A water taxi would be expensive but you can take the vaporetto (water bus) for about 3.5 Euros. (And you can get day passes which will make it cheaper if you are going to make several trips.)

Two questions: Did you check the Ai Mori's site or go to some place like www.hotels.com? If you did the latter, take a look around at some others. Each one gets its own quota of rooms.

Secondly, are you planning on leaving on the 20th? Remember that the big dinner is that night.

Although hotelclub.com no longer has availability for that night, www.hotels.com does. And maybe other outlets do as well.

Any guesses of the DO weather in VCE?
 

Panicking here. Long trip coming up: SJC (warm) -> NCE (cool) -> VCE (?) -> CDG (most probably freezing) -> HKG (warm) -> SIN (really hot) -> CDG (freezing again) -> ATL

Any advice/tips what/how to pack light would be greatly appreciated.

Venice weather for November ... you should probably expect daytime temperatures around 10-12 deg C. November typically has about 20 days with rain in Venice, amounting to an average of about 8 inches of rain in the month.

So: cool, with a two-thirds chance of rain on any given day. Fog is quite common at this time of year too; as is, uh, flooding.

Oddly enough, last November I was in Milan when it rained every single day. I expected Venice, which is usually much wetter, to be drenched but went there anyhow to meet O2K.

My UIG refused to come because of the rain.

By the time my train was 15 minutes out of Milan I didn't see a drop of rain. The weather in Venice was a bit chilly but dry. On my way back, again when the train was 15 minutes out of Milan, I hit the rain again.

The UIG told me that it had been raining there constantly while I was gone. :)

No kidding. In Varese (and probably therefore in Milano also), we had more than twice the average rain for November.

Last November when I was in VCE for 2 weeks (as well as the year before) the amount of rain we experienced was negligible.. Maybe we were just lucky. When it did rain, it was just for a short period of time. It also was not very cold. I had a raincoat with a zip-out lining. I unzipped the lining when we arrived and never had to put it back in.Hopefully, our luck will hold. I would just like to think we spread sunshine wherever we go :)

O2K, I have taken your advice and am packing a similar raincoat. As explained in the "cashmere" thread, this means that my famed overcoat will not make the trip but my over-priced jacket and the rest of the ensemble will be there.

Meanwhile, I want to cheer you all up by letting you know that the dollar is getting stronger against the Euro. A few weeks ago, you got about 76 Euro cents for your dollar. Today, it is up to 79 Euro cents.

By the time we get there, we might even be able to afford to eat something!

Should I take rain boots? Usually I wear tennis shoes unless it's cold, then I try to wear warm snow boots.

I don't wear rain boots but I have found it helpful to have waterproof shoes in Venice.

On the other hand, keep in mind that you are going to be in ITALY. Why not give yourself an excuse to buy some Italian boots if the need arises?

I'm bringing a pair or two of waterproof socks, just in case! :p

Is there such a thing???

As he is such a gentleman, I will just let Dovster lay down his cashmere jacket for me to walk on ;)

Discount vaporetto cards
 

Somewhere along the way there was discussion of these cards. Don't they have to be purchased before we leave the U.S.? Don't they also give a discount on admission to the museums, or is that a different card?