Venice 2018: Transit and Arrival

From Siena my parents and I took a bus through the rainy Tuscan hill country back to Florence and there we boarded a train headed to Venice. Our train snaked north through Italy at high speed, at one point hitting over 210 kilometers per hour (over 130 miles per hour). Just as the train was hitting 207 Km/h I snapped a photo of the info screen hanging from the train car’s ceiling.

To reach Venice’s main islands our train crossed the lagoon on a causeway that connects Venice to the mainland. The causeway also carries all of the car traffic onto the islands, though all vehicles have to park in a large parking lot at the western tip of the islands. Venice’s main train station is called Santa Lucia (if you take the train to Venice make sure your ride ends here and not Mestre Station on the mainland) and when you exit the train station the Grand Canal is right there to greet you. It’s a fitting introduction to the city and one of the most dramatic reveals you can experience when traveling around Europe by train.