Venice Italy with Noah, Troy and Momma: EURAIL to Venice Italy

My brother, our mother and I traveled to Venice the last week of December, 2017 by train. We had spent the previous day and morning in Rome, barely managed to make our morning train out of Rome because I took us to the wrong train station; had a relaxing 6+ hour train ride and spent the last twenty minutes fretting about which station to get off the train as we had such trouble getting out of Rome.

Arriving by train into Venice, the training station we debarked at was Stazione di Venezia Santa Lucia. The train station before this last stop is Stazione Venezia Mestre. We were very tempted to get off the train at Mestre as pretty much everyone on the train exited at that station. This is the one before the long bridge to the island of Venice. If you are staying on the island of Venice, wait until Stazione di Venezia Santa Lucia.

Leaving the train station at Santa Lucia is easy. Once we found our way through the train station, we exited directly onto the Grand Canal. Unfortunately, ours was a rainy exit. The rain storms from this morning in Rome had apparently traveled northeast with us to Venice.

Stazione di Venezia Santa Lucia is directly on the island of Venice and has a wide boarding area for water taxis on the Grand Canal.

What we thought was a great idea was to let the porters in front of the train station help us with our bags. They only had to take our bags a very short way to the boats. Had I known how close our water taxi was located, we would have rolled our own bags as we travel pretty light.

Noah and Troy on ferry from train station to hotel.

The water taxis from and to the train station are large boats. It was rainy so Troy and I stood outside, but under the deck cover, while momma sat inside the cabin. The cabin had windows all around, but outside was cold and everyone had steamed up the windows so momma got to see nothing on the boat ride to the hotel area. Troy and I had a great view the whole way.

Our hotel, Gio & Gio Bed and Breakfast, was located near the south end of the Grand Canal. Troy and I got to see the Rialto Bridge, the Ponte dell'Accademia and Peggy Guggenheim's former home along with all of the waterside hotels, churches, stores, restaurants and homes. Even in the cold drizzling rain, Venice is extremely impressive.

We debarked at the S. Maria del Giglio Ferry Terminal

For momma, who had ridden inside the ferry cabin with fogged windows and not seen any of Venice so far, she unfortunately had to walk with us down a long, narrow and dark alley to get to our hotel (still in the cold, drizzling rain). This was really her first impression of Venice and she later told us at that point she was ready to leave Venice.