Venice
 

Hi,

I'm expecting a 4 day business trip to Venice in late January and would appreciate suggestions on hotels.

I'll need to be around via Orlanda during the day, but will be free in the afternoons onwards. Besides some sightseeing I'll also be shopping so I'd prefer staying in or near streets which are similar to Rome's via del corso or via Nazionalle which are packed with value-for-money Italian apparel shops.

So, is there a hotel which ticks all the boxes, i.e., near via Oralanda and near a shopping street?.

If not, I'll go for a hotel near the shopping streets and will commute by taxi or whatever to via Orlanda.

Budget is up to 300EUR/night.

Cheers

Although my first trip to Venice was in 1960, I am certainly not an expert. Wait till Perche, the FT expert par excellence, shows up with precise ideas, criticisms, etc. In the meanwhile, allow me a couple of comments.

- Via Orlanda is not in Venice but in Mestre! This would be about 7-10 km away (by taxi) and then walk or boat.

- You are the absolutely first person I "meet" who goes to Venice and cares about shopping. There is no such thing as a shopping area in Venice (unless we're talking about tourist stuff), but Perche will certainly give you more info.

- Finally, by streets, I guess you mean canals? I gather this is your first time in Venice! ;)

It's better to stay in Venice and take a taxi to Mestre than the other way around. Mestre is not a nice place to be. There's no single shopping area in Venice. They are spread out. The closest you'll come to shopping street is Via XXII Marzo. Street names don't mean that much in Venice. They can change without notice. They angle off into dead ends. Just walk along Via XXII Marzo and you'll see plenty of high end stores.

To get to Via XXII Marzo, if you are standing in the middle of Piazza San Marco, with your back to the Basilica, you could exit out of the right corner of the square or the left corner. Go out the left corner and just walk straight. It doesn't pick up the name Via XXII Marzo until about a block, but you'll see plenty of stores. If you pass Chanel you're on the right street.

There are also a lot of stores around the Rialto Bridge, on the San Marco side, not the San Polo side (very cheap touristy junk on the SP side). Even though it will be January there will be crowds. Just go with the flow and you'll see the stores. Another is Strada Nuova, one of the few long, straight streets with lots of stores, and maybe some value. It's as similar to Via del Corso as you're going to get in Venice.

Thanks heaps, Perche. Very helpful.

When you've mentioned getting a taxi to Mestre you meant a car right, not some boat in the canals?. Sorry if the question seems trivial but haven't been there before.

Also, any suggestions on hotels to stay at which are near Via XXII Marzo or Strada Nuova?. As I've mentioned, budget is up to 300EUR/night.

Cheers

Depends on where you stay.

A taxi is a car. A vaporetto is a water bus. A water taxi is a private, very expensive motorboat.

If you stay near the train station or near Piazzale Roma, you go to Piazzale Roma and you take a 15-20 minute taxi cab to Via Orlanda in Mestre on the mainland. Staying near either place is not recommended. It is only for people just looking to get in and get out of Venice, and not to enjoy the nicer parts of Venice. The train station area is horrendous and touristy, and Piazzale Roma a few blocks away is the only part of Venice with cars, buses, taxis, and smog. It's like not staying in Venice. These are just areas to get a taxi, bus, or train, not places to stay if the goal is to enjoy the best of Venice.

Right on via XXII Marzo is Hotel Saturnia. It's a nice hotel, with one of Venice's better restaurants. At that time of year it will be considerably less than your budget. You can walk from it to Piazza San Marco in 5 minutes. La Fenice is right around the corner, if there is an opera, symphony, or chamber music. I would never recommend staying in such an area anytime other than in January, because it would be too crowded, but in January instead of waiting an hour or two to get into Basilica San Marco, you'll be able to walk right in with no wait. Other nice places in that area, like Gritti, or Bauer Palazzo would be over your budget.

If you stay at Saturnia you will need to take a vaporetto to Piazzale Roma, then a taxi to Via Orlando in Mestre. But you'll be in a nice area.

Strada Nuova is not a nice place to stay. Napoleon didn't like the fact that Venetian streets are topsy turvy, crooked, with many dead ends that made it hard for his carriage to negotiate. He basically plowed everything down in a straight path to construct one long street from near Ponte Rialto to the area where the train station now is, the point closest to the mainland. That ruined the areas character. It even has a McDonalds now. But, it's a reasonable place to shop for value, at least in Venice. It is all shops.

Just a thought, since at that time of year Hotel Saturnia will be quite a bit under your budget, perhaps you can swing something special.

Some years back I had to travel from Venice to Udine on business. Udine is a fairly distant train ride away. I stayed at the Saturnia, and because someone else with deep pockets was picking up the tab, I took a gondola from the hotel to the train station.

Saturnia is one of the few venetian hotels that has its own private gondola platform. You step from the lobby of the hotel, right into a gondola that they hire for you. Now, taking a gondola in the early morning Venetian mist through the back streets of Venice, then down the Grand Canal to the train station, is something you will never, ever forget.

In your case, the train station is just a few blocks from Piazzale Roma, where the taxi cabs are. If you elect to stay there you might call the hotel and ask how much such a gondola ride to the Piazzale Roma area would cost these days. I don't remember, but perhaps the hotel and gondola would be around your 300 euro per day budget lodging budget.

There are several ACTV bus routes between Mestre and Piazzale Roma, if you find the taxi cost prohibitive. (Alternatively, but more complicated and slower, is taking the short, frequent train ride between the train station on Venice "proper" (Santa Lucia) to the Venezia-Mestre station and then taking a bus or taxi).

A large number of the people who work in Venice live in Mestre, and commute by bus and/or train. I stayed there on one trip, with a friend who worked at a hotel and whose family were among the many long-time Venetians priced out of the islands. It's not the hell-hole that some people would have you believe, just pedestrian and uninteresting, especially when compared with the wonders of Venice.

I agree. There are some buses that go from Piazzale Roma to Via Orlando. But without knowing more specifically where OP is going, it's hard to say how convenient it is, and he mentioned taxis or I assume whatever they call those boats.

Via Orlanda is a fairly long street that turns into the road that goes all the way out to the airport. It can be a 15 minute bus ride from Venice, or a 35 minute bus ride, depending on where on Via Orlanda. It can be a less than ten minute, or a more than 20 minute cab ride.

In general in that area, unless you have at least some Italian speaking skills or are with someone who does, it is better to avoid the buses. In Rome there are enough tourists that even the bus drivers can rudely tell you in english where to buy a ticket, where to put your ticket in the machine, where you should stand, etc. Mestre does not have tourists. Chances are, most of the bus drivers won't know a word of english. You don't want to get lost in Mestre without a friend who can help you out.

It's kind of sad that most Venetians can't afford to live in Venice anymore. The population went from 160,000 in the 60's to less than 60,000 now. Of course it won't, but if the rate of population decline continues at the same rate, mathematically, the last native inhabitant of Venice will move out of the city in 2046.

So many apartment owners try to force out their tenants so that they can turn the place into a more lucrative weekly tourist rental. Inheritance laws are so byzantine that when the owner dies, if they have more than one direct descendant, who inherits the apartment generally gets litigated, which takes many years, by which time the apartment falls into disrepair and is no longer habitable. Those are just a few of the many reasons why the population is in serious decline.

I have a lot of friends who live in Mestre, and they love it. Most are younger people with children. Venice really has almost no greenery or parks. You might find a few kids kicking a soccer ball off of a wall here and there, but there aren't many places to play. It's illegal for a child to even ride a bicycle in Venice. I think there's only one movie theatre left in the whole city. I think there's only person left in Venice who still does alterations, an elderly lady with a small shop near Campo Santa Maria Formosa. If you need anything, you have to go to Mestre.

In Mestre there is a huge park downtown for kids to play in, with unlimited space for soccer, bicycling, and for families to walk and push a stroller without having to lug it up a bridge every 25-50 meters through a blockade of tourists taking selfies. There's a huge store, something like a Costco in the USA. There's a monorail that links Mestre to Piazzale Roma that makes it extra convenient for people who live there to work in Venice. Mestre has been great, and is loved by the people who live there, especially younger couples with children.

But for a tourist not in one of the nicer residential areas, it's not so nice. If you get off of the train at the Mestre stop and walk a block or two away, you'll want to turn back. It's a very industrial city. A few weeks ago I had to do a long, long walk from the train station to see a friend in an outlying area not well served by public transportation, so I had no choice except for a cab, and I chose not make the spend. It's all pretty run down, along downtown, going towards the airport, and especially going towards Marghera. And there's nothing to see.

After dark, at least downtown or near the train station, I get to where I'm going because the streets are deserted, except for people you don't want to meet. That's why I think it is better to stay in Venice and travel to Mestre for work, rather than the other way around if you are a tourist. If you are a Venetian with a young family, certain places in Mestre may be the better place to live.

hi,

Any inputs on staying around Piazza Santa Maria Novella? is that area fine or one to avoid?

Thanks

Are you still talking about Venice, or do you mean Florence now? I'm pretty sure there's no Piazza Santa Maria Novella in Venice. Did you perhaps mean Campo Santa Maria Formosa? Or...?

oops...something got mixed up, sorry.

Amending my question to Sestiere San Polo region in Venice.

cheers

One area not mentioned is Cannaregio. It is not quite as touristy as many other areas, has some nice local trattorias and shopping as well as nice outdoor markets. I have stayed at Hotel Ai Mori D'Oriente and it was very pleasant and located on a lovely canal in a very quiet area. Moreover, it is possible to walk to Piazzale Roma from there to catch a cab. http://www.morihotel.com

That's my favorite area to stay in Venice, because it's away from the (other!) tourists. There's also a Marriott (forget which brand) there with it's own boat to take guests to San Marco.

I'm always a bit wary of using the sestiere names as shorthand for specific areas, because the sestieri can cover a variety of neighborhoods. For example, Cannaregio includes the (much-maligned) train station area, as well as those pleasant, off-the-beaten-path neighborhoods. Parts of Castello are much closer to the (equally maligned) Piazza San Marco area than parts of the San Marco sestiere are, while other parts of Castello are incredibly peaceful and quite far out.

"San Polo" can mean the foot of the Rialto Bridge, the large Campo San Polo, or a quiet area further away.

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Yes, I stayed there a few times. It is now http://boscolodeidogi.hotelinvenice.com and part of the Marriott Autograph collection.
The location is wonderful. Some of the rooms and suites are quite lovely and luxurious. This is a hotel in a great location with a beautiful garden and Boscolo managed to screw it up by changing what was a chic boutique hotel in to a corporate product. Management has been a disaster for at least ten years.