Trip to Venice the great debate on transportation to the destination:
There are LOTs of options to get to Venice. Driving is 7 hours according to google maps and would take one of two vignettes to purchase - neither are expensive, but then there is gas. We can get gas in Germany for "american" prices ($2.85/gallon) but once we leave Germany we don't have gas cards in any other country. Gas is expensive. PLUS the exhaustion factor. 7 hours on paper is NEVER 7 hours... We have found that out with construction and other things add 2 hours to the travel. I found an app that calculates the cost (htps://www.trippy.com) - going through Switzerland it's 125 euro (including gas) through Austria it's between 89 and 97 Euro to get there. PLUS parking for a car once you get there ($40 minimum) and we won't use the while in Venice... PLUS wear and tear on the car that just hit 100,000 miles...
The exhaustion factor from driving turns me off. We drove the "6 hours" to Berlin - then we didn't really drive the car while we were in town, but had to pay parking, etc - we took public transport in town (or walked) as it was easier. Those 6 hours turned out to be more like 8 or 9 with stops for gas and trying to find food and other things, Germany (most of Europe) is not really designed for road travel like it is in the states. Most food items are off the autobahns and those on the autobahn are truck stops. I told Butch "next time we train"...
So, the train was investigated - I can book a train ONLY at the train station. The cost for 1st class (required now) was roughly 500 for both of us BUT I had to go to the train station and fight to get someone who speaks english or could figure out what my bad German is saying to get a ticket. Again, the comfort factor was there but it was an ALL DAY endeavor. The fastest we found was 10 hours of travel - NOW granted it would be very scenic on the travel and I would have figured out how to go back a different way but the cost was what got me,
Air travel came in at $500 for both (US not euro - another factor when you look at 500 Euro, that's more like $600 with conversion rates).
So it came down to what we have more of... since train and plane were about the same cost in the end, it wasn't worth it for us to spend ALL DAY on trains and transfers 2 plus transfers for train. We'll still have ONE transfer in Madrid, Spain with the flight however it's faster in the long run. We leave at noon - have lunch in Madrid (1.5 hour layover), get to venice at 6:30pm - catch a water bus to the hotel, settle in, have a late dinner on the canal and start the vacation relaxed
NOW prior to covid when all of the low cost flights were available we could have pulled this off for $100 round trip and DIRECT for the flight... dang COVID - all direct flights are pretty well shut down (they are starting back up in ... drum roll... JULY). There are a few direct flights through Frankfurt BUT they were slightly more expensive, and thanks to covid there are no flights from Stuttgart to Frankfurt, it's a train... I know, I know, I should be more open to train travel... I guess it's more what I'm familiar with and it will save more in the long run in time according to my info - AND it was a mid day departure with an early evening arrival - all the trains were 8pm or later... I'm getting old and want to settle in long before that :)
SO HOTEL debates came in... this is the hotle that Suz and I stayed at in the 90s (these pictures are from Booking.com). I don't have the photos' from the 90's in my computer or I would share those as well. THEN LIz and I stayed there again when we went through in 2013. yep, same room I do believe!!
But booking for a non-budget stay/flight/transport husband vs. what I have done all my life was hard... I looked at lots of hotels, I put them in favorites, I debated locations, I debated amenities. It was horrible. I haven't spent a lot on hotel rooms in the recent past. I select the hotel for a view over all - give me a decent hotel with a view in a good price. The issue with Venice is rooms with a view are pricey and it's JULY - there is the potential for it to be miserably hot, so A/C would be a great thing to have... so there was that. I kept coming back to this hotel over and over... then discovered someone in our office had stayed there and loved it. OK, that sold it. I'll go THERE. Keep in mind that although we have been to Venice a LOT, it was when we lived close enough to go on our own and see the sights without having to figure out a hotel. This is literally the ONLY hotel I have stayed at in Venice, so my system is in for a shock, isn't it?? LOL!!
Onward to photos so you can see what we experienced over time
THIS will be the hotel this trip. Yes, I did get the canal view room. Yes, we will be living large on this trip.
So the anticipation is building... it's only a few days away - time to now figure out how to get our medical cards all worked out. I have three days to get that sorted.
