Getting to your hotel in Venice

Italy. Not California. Or any other Venice.

I know Venice is all about canals and water. So, that’s why in preparing for our stop in there, I double-checked that the hotel had parking. Their website says valet and self-park available. Perfect. I am happy to park my car and wander around, no need to drive much. I don’t want to become the hazard.

So, based on yes, we have parking, these are the directions to get to the hotel, from the google.

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Seems easy peasy. I had never before been to Venice, so I had no reason to question any of this.

Here’s the real way we got to our hotel:

1. Input hotel address to our GPS and follow them for 7 hours up the coast of Croatia. Enjoy stunning views for hours.

2. Get almost lost in closed on-ramps and construction in round-a-bouts

3. Drive across a long bridge, into a round-a-bout with only one way out, the way we just came in

4. Drive back across long bridge

5. Compare GPS to pasted directions from Google (above)

6. See they are totally off. Totally. Not the same, not close to the same.

7. Confirm address is correct.

8. Go back across long bridge.

9. Turn into parking area, find boats and trains and stuff, but no roads at all but that one we came in on.

10. Park illegally and call the hotel

11. Blah blah blah (in mostly Italian), you no take car here, take the bus.

12. Ok, I see busses. Find bus. Wait. No busses go there.

13. Learn that bus=boat in Venice.

14. Park car (legally), get stuff and head out to find the right boat/bus.

15. Wander aimlessly and eventually find ticket machine, get two “bus” passes.

16. Find our “bus” and wait.

17. Get on crowded bus.

18. Ride bus for almost an hour til our stop.

19. Get off bus, find “taxi”.

20. Taxi gatekeeper tells us no taxi, hotel very close, just walk (with luggage). He points.

21. We walk.

22. And walk. 30 minutes walking over bridges and cobblestone streets and no hotel, but we have found another “bus” stop and are pretty sure it will take us back to our stop. We start over again, and will simply pay whatever it takes for a taxi to take us there, no matter how close.

23. Board bus, 20 minutes to our stop.

24. As we approach our stop, we see our hotel on the canal, now we know where it is and kinda how to get there.

25. So we walk.

26. With luggage.

27. Around Venice.

28. Again.

29. Over bridges with stairs.

30. On cobblestones.

31. Down dark allies.

32. And find our hotel.

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