 |
| Travel Guide | Transportation |
| Our No. 1 Venice Hotel Warning | |
| |||||
City Sightseeing VeneziaThe "hop on, hop off" tour-bus company now serves Venice by boat, with half a dozen stops (including the island of Murano).
ABOVE: A brand-new City Sightseeing Venezia tour boat waits for passengers near Venice's Santa Lucia Railway Station.
City Sightseeing is a familiar name in many European cities. It operates open-top sightseeing buses and local tours in European locations from Aalborg to Zürich.
You can join the tour at any stop. Tickets are available on board, from red-shirted company staff near the main boat stops, or from the City Sightseeing Venezia office in the railroad station. Is the tour worth the price?
Still, touring with City Sightseeing Venezia does have several advantages over using public transportation:
Learn more before you leave home:For more information about City Sightseeing Venezia, visit the company's Web site, where you can also download a free Android or iOS app. More photos:
City Sightseeing Venezia tours begin and end at a landing just around the corner from the Venezia Santa Lucia Railroad Station.
You can pick up a brochure, ask questions, and buy tickets at an office inside the station. (The ticket office is next to the Freccia Club Trenitalia, facing the platforms near Track 14.)
After you've bought your ticket, go through the station's side door. You'll see a sandwich sign and a portable gangway next to the water (and maybe the boat itself, as in this photo).
The boat is a large flat-bottomed water bus that accommodates wheelchairs and strollers. If you don't have a ticket, you can buy one from a City Sightseeing employee in a red shirt or jacket.
The "hop on, hop off" tour nominally has seven stops, although some may not be in operation during your visit:
City Sightseeing's landing at Zattere is shared with several other boat operators. Boarding and disembarkation at this stop can be unnerving with a wheelchair when the Giudecca Canal is choppy, since the floating pontile or pontoon moves with the waves. (The crew will provide help if you need it.)
In this photo, you can see the City Sightseeing Venezia water bus cruising from the Lido di Venezia to the glassmaking island of Murano.
|
|
| Venice for Visitors - Home | | Europe for Visitors - Home | | Contact information, disclosures, audience | Copyright © 1996-2019 Durant and Cheryl Imboden. All rights reserved. |
In 2016, City Sightseeing introduced a "hop on, hop off" boat
tour in Venice. Unlike its defunct predecessor, the city's poorly-conceived
For
about the same price as the City Sightseeing Venezia tour, you could buy a one-
or two-day 
In
contrast, City Sightseeing Venezia has only half a dozen stops, although these
do include the most popular tourist areas, and boats run only about once
an hour from morning through mid-evening.
If
you're on a budget, or if you simply like exploring, you can choose a third
option: Walk around Venice on your own, as we do. Central Venice is only about
twice the size of New York's Central Park, and as any local will tell you,
walking is often the quickest way to get from point A to point B. (It's also the
most interesting.)
