Not all buses have wheels !
Travelman on tour in Venice
Added to website 29 January 2012
The Italian city of Venice is not a place that one immediately thinks of as having a lot to interest a transport enthusiast, but it is
not all canals and gondolas. Here is a quick tour of the area by public transport taken on a damp day in December 2011.
Venice is a city made up of numerous small islands separated by canals and linked together by foot bridges. Most of the city is only accessible
on foot or by boat and whilst there is a road and rail bridge linking the city to the mainland, it finishes abruptly on the edge if the city
in the unglamorous Piazza Roma, which is surrounded by multi-story car parks and a bus station !
1. End of the Road ! Piazza Roma bus station (the closest motorised vehicles can get to central Venice). Local buses (mostly painted orange)
use stands at the front, whilst longer distance and airport buses load at the rear.
2. A typical airport coach operated by ATVO – passenger visibility is obviously not a high priority !
The building behind is one of the large multi-story car parks that flanks Piazza Roma,
next to which is a new people mover that provides a link the Tronchetto port area.
3.
Onward travel from Piazza Roma (or the nearby Santa Lucia Rail Station) is either on foot or by waterbuses which provide a high
frequency and well used network of services through and around the city and also to the surrounding islands (see map on ACTV website [PDF format]
HERE)
4. Vapporetti converge on the waterbus stops at Piazza Roma.
The four types of Waterbus are explained on the Europe for Visitors website
HERE
but can be summarised as follows:
5. The Vapporetto (seen here near the Rialto Bridge) are the main workhorses of the
waterbus system, serving the Grand and Guidecca Canals on heavily used routes 1 and 2
which run every 5 minutes. They have flat floors and can carry over 200 passengers.
6. The Motoscafo (which carry approximately 160 passengers) are used on the routes which negotiate the choppier waters
around the outside of Venice and also serve the island of Murano.
7. The double and single deck Motonavi which serve the outer islands in the Venician lagoon.
It is even possible to travel by waterbus to/from Marco Polo Airport using the Alilaguna Line boats:
8.
Finally for those who simply want to travel from one side of the Grand Canal to the other, there is the Traghetto:
9.
which is a simple Gondola which carries approximately 10 passengers who usually stand up for the whole journey
(who on earth did the health and safety risk assessment on that !)
On the other side of the lagoon are the Islands of Lido and Pellestrina on which cars are permitted, so these are served by car
ferries, one of which is used by local buses:
10.
11.
. . . whilst on the mainland, in the nearby city of Mestre, ordinary bus services are supplemented by a new Translohr “Tram” system using
rubber-tyred vehicles which are guided by a fixed central rail in the ground and which draw current from overhead electric wires like a
conventional tram (see company websites
HERE
and
HERE
[in Italian]).
12.
13.
So as you can see, Venice has plenty to keep a transport enthusiast occupied for a day or so and we haven't even covered the ordinary
buses on the mainland (see
FOCUS ON FLICKR
for a few photos of these plus a few more Vapporetti).
However, Venice is a very expensive city and
with single tickets on the Waterbuses costing an eye watering 6.50 Euros (even for a 10 minute trip), it is not the best place to visit if you are on
a budget, so plenty of research into discount tickets and the best places to eat and sleep is recommended before you leave home !
Travelman
January 2012
More pictures on FOCUS ON FLICKR
HERE.
Coming soon . . . Travelman visits Trieste
Trieste now on this website
HERE