Ah, the vaporetto. It’s like being on a motorboat with a bunch of people who treat it like a local bus. Well, that’s exactly what it is. It’s a bus boat. For all I know, vaporetto translates to “bus boat”. Or possibly to “cattle car on the river.”
There are vaporetto stops along the canals marked by small covered docks and bright yellow awnings. You can get a ticket and go wherever you want. Tickets can be one way or as a pass for a day or a week or longer. If you’re going to be in town for a day, get the pass; it’s cheaper than a few one way tickets. If you can figure out a bus schedule in America, you can figure out the vaporetto. If you can read Italian, you’re probably better off, but since most of the schedule is numerical, you’ll probably do OK. If you don’t have a ticket, you can get one at a news stand. Or you can do what we did and just get on the boat and tell the guy that you need a ticket. Let him know as soon as you get on, since they conduct random checks to make sure you’ve got a valid ticket. Not having a ticket could result in a several hundred euro fine, so it’s easier to just get a ticket and call it a day, unless you like to gamble and boat-hopping is your idea of fun. Buying a ticket from the guy gives you the opportunity to talk to him about what stop you want to go to and whether you’re on the right boat. There’s a good chance you’re not. I’m sure you’re wondering who “the guy” is. It’s not the boat driver, but someone else on the crew. He opens the gate and lets people on and off the boat (not in that order, of course) and helps the elderly not fall into the water. They’re a lot more courteous towards their senior citizens in Italy than we are in the US. They seem to respect them and treat them with a certain deference. At best, we seem to treat them like speed bumps, but I digress. Find the guy on the boat, get a ticket, and enjoy cruising along the Venetian waterways at 3 miles per hour. Yes, you could walk faster, but you’d probably get lost.
