I made a trip to Venice, Murano and Lido in Italy in early November. It was an expense-paid business trip, so I didn’t have much of spare time at all, but it was a good trip. (Good thing I’ve been there before for a family trip. Otherwise, I’d went crazy for not being able to see nor do anything.)
I flew out of JFK to Frankfurt, then from Frankfurt to Venice. The Marco Polo airport is on the main land, so you need to take either a water taxi, or a bus to near Venice’s train station and take a water bus from there to Venice. Since my hotel was on Lido, I took a private water bus near the airport straight to Lido. The station was about 10 min. walk from the airport. It’s well marked, and you won’t miss it.
Once arrived to Lido, I walked about 10 min. along the shore line to the hotel. Unlike Venice, there are many cars and some buses on Lido, if your hotel is away from water bus station, you can take a taxi or a bus. The reason why I chose a hotel on Lido was that it was much cheaper than the same class hotels in Venice.
To hop around the islands in the area, public water bus service is the best way to travel. Since I was there for 3 days, I purchased the 3-day pass (30 euro, unlimited rides). Be careful of which water bus to get on. There are some private water bus services, which don’t take your public water bus ticket. (I saw many people got on the wrong one.)
On the day I arrived in Venice, a client and I met a Japanese lady, who lives there. She took us to a small local restaurant, where I had the best spaghetti bongole of my life!
The next day, we spent a day meeting with businesses on Murano. Murano is famous for its glass products. In between the meetings, I went into some Murano glass shops and saw some beautiful items. I was surprised to find that many shops didn’t accept any credit card payments. Good thing there were many ATM machines on the island.
The 3rd day, we spent a day in Venice. Unlike Murano, most businesses in Venice spoke in English very well, some of them even spoke some Japanese! One of the meeting was canceled the last minute, so we walked around San Marco Square and took care of souvenir shopping. Even though November is a shoulder season, there were lots of Japanese tourists. Restaurants on the streets near San Marco Square all had menu in Japanese.
I left early in the morning of the 4th day. I took a private water bus back to the airport. Then flew from there to Frankfurt. After spending 5 hours in Frankfurt, I took another flight back to JFK.
Hi Bilimari, we do import Murano Jewellery, its beautiful and we love it. For the individual traveller, I recommend buying the jewellery on the Island of Murano and not Venice itself. Its a short vaperatto journey to Murano from Venice, the jewellery is cheaper and more likely to be authentic. I have also noticed the jewellery is cheaper still the further you explore from the docking points on Murano. I going to Venice in the next couple of months and cannot wait!
I’m assuming from the name and the URL, you deal with Murano glass items. Murano glass and Venetian beads are so beautiful, I just love them! There were so many beautiful Venetian beads and Murano glasses, I would bought lots if it weren’t for expensive Euro!
My wife and I love Venice. We go at least three times a year and are travelling next in January.