3 Nights in Venice, Italy

This is not the usual tourist guide to Venice. Rough Guide, Fodors etc. do that perfectly. It’s a post about some of the mobility ‘concerns’ I had when I was planning my trip, and the adventures we had when we got to Venice.

Why Venice?

When I was thinking of places that I wanted to see, in my mind, Venice was always going to be a case of ‘if you’ve done Venice in a wheelchair, you’ll manage anywhere’. The City’s made up of 115 little islands, around 150 canals and all connected by c. 400 bridges. Why would anyone think that going to Venice in a wheelchair would be anything other than a bloody nightmare!

We flew in early August 2018, with Jet2, (again), booked as a City Break, out of Manchester. Great experience. Their Special Assistance team worked well for me – Ambulift to the plane, aisle wheelchair to my seat etc. – and they liaised with the hotel to get me an accessible bathroom. I also make sure that I contact the hotel directly myself, just to make sure that their accessible matches my definition. You’d be amazed how different hotels, and some countries, can have a different view of what accessible is.

The airport

Marco Polo Airport https://www.veniceairport.it/en/is a clean and modern airport on the Venetian mainland. It has fantastically helpful immigration, check in and customs staff. The ground crew were great getting me off the plane and into my own wheelchair. But it didn’t stop there. They then escorted me through passport control like I was a VIP, (or a criminal(?)), not just some balding, smiley bloke in a wheelchair. Talk about preferential treatment. The airport’s website is great for transport information to and from the airport.

Getting to the Island

I like to be as independent as I can when I travel. If I have the choice, I want to get from the airport to the City using public transport. It might be sad but somehow it feels more ‘real’. I’m not sure that after all these years Lisa still thinks this. She’s patient though. Arriving in Venice, had to be by water and straight down the Grand Canal. I chose the Water Bus, the Alilaguna, over coach or rail. I wasn’t disappointed.

Alilaguna

This is accessed from the arrivals hall in Marco Polo. You take a lift to the 1st floor and then go along an enclosed ‘skyway’, (travelators and walkways). A 10 minute roll later and you’re at the departure docks. This is a link to their website https://www.alilaguna.it/en

The Arancio, (orange), line goes directly to Venice. This is the main island, (not the mainland, (Mestre), or the islands of Murano or Burano). Cost for a 72 hour return ticket, was €27 per person. The Alilaguna website lists their wheelchair accessible credentials, but until you’ve actually experienced it…

I found it perfect, with getting on and off the boat being decent. The crew, (1, sometimes 2 of them) were super helpful getting me on board. Venice is tidal so the height of the boat in the water, varies with the tide, (and also whether the boat is full or empty).

The able bodied sit in the front or rear sections of the boat, accessed down 4 steps. I knew that I couldn’t manage this, so I sat – in my wheelchair – on deck alongside the boat’s pilot. Perfect for me. Open air, unobscured views of a living museum coming right towards you.

Our full journey took about 1hr 15mns from the Airport to the Santa Maria del Giglio ‘bus’ stop. The boat departs every 15 minutes from the airport, during the day. Timetables are on the Alilaguna website.

Hotels

There are many hotels on the island, and they cater for all types of wallet size. You really need to make your own choice. Our hotel was beautiful. It was also accessible for a wheelchair user – level entrance into the hotel, (no steps), lifts to each floor and a fully accessible roll in shower. I’ve attached a link http://www.hotelsaturnia.it/ because the hotel was great and the staff were absolutely amazing.

But it was a real eye opening, learning point for me. I was so stupid to have missed the one fundamental point. But it was a lesson learned, and I won’t do it again. Basically, I spent so much time researching the ‘perfect’ (for me) hotel that I missed completely the (in)accessibility issues of getting from the Alilaguna stop to the beautiful hotel.

The Bridges (pt 1)

Make sure – like I didn’t – that you are not on a ‘mini island’ that has a bridge or bridges to get you over to the other ‘mini islands’. If you don’t investigate this you will struggle or potentially not be able to get on or off your ‘mini island’. Unless you have a hotel with a private landing/mooring for a gondola. I’ve since found out that Google Earth’s Street View is my new best friend and accessibility planning tool.

I had to navigate one such bridge to get from the Vaporetto, (more on this below) or Alilaguna to the hotel, or back. This was achieved through the massive help of Lisa, the hotel concierge staff and numerous other tourists, (I thank you all). They literally lifted and hand-balled my chair and then me over the bridge. Another unforgettable experience courtesy of my MS!

The Bridges (pt 2)

My ‘experience’ above, could have been a nightmare. Fortunately, I’m ridiculously stubborn and I can laugh at myself.

There are c. 400 bridges on the island of Venice, crossing 150 canals and connecting the c. 115 ‘mini islands’ the City was built on. Some of the more popular bridged have been ramped, with the ramps running alongside the steps.

They’re a pretty steep gradient but do-able if you self-propel. One issue I found was that virtually all of the able bodied people choose to use the ramps and not the steps. This doesn’t change even when there’s a wheelchair on the ramp. I’ve never understood this aspect of human nature. I probably never will.

Considering there are c. 400 bridges, only a very small number are ramped. I’d hazard a guess at less than 5%-10%, (but I may be wrong with this).

Getting around Venice

As regards a City for wheelchairs, (once you get ‘comfortable’ with the bridges), Venice is the dream I thought it would be. The floor surface is great for rolling. It’s exceptionally flat and level. And I can’t recall seeing any curbs. I used my Freewheel http://www.gofreewheel.com/ for the majority of the time, so there were no ‘rolling issues’ for my trip. But for the limited number of times when I travelled without the Freewheel, there were no caster issues from uneven flooring, gravel etc.

The Vaporetto

To get from ‘mini island’ to ‘mini island’, or district, we used the Vaporetto, (the Venice waterbus) http://actv.avmspa.it/en/content/vaporetto

Lines 1 & 2 run up and down the Grand Canal, traversing from side to side. There are similar boarding issues as with the Alilaguna. Whether boarding is level, from the floating dock to the Vaporetto, depends on the numbers of passengers on the boat at any one time. Or how high or low the Vaporetto is sitting in the water. Over our 3 days, and many Vaporetto journeys, I had a variety of roll on experiences and some challenging boardings, (all while seated in my chair).

But the Vaporetto staff are great at helping you embark and disembark. They see any level ‘difficulties’ as a personal challenge. There appeared to be a ramp at every floating dock but the Vaporetto crew would only use it as a last resort. We made lots of new ‘friends’ with lots of strangers in our 3 days travelling using the Vaporetto. It’s a hoot.

You need a ticket to ride the Vaporetto and you validate your ticket using the machines at the entrance of each Vaporetto stop. There’s loads of information on the web and particularly on the ACTV website. There is a penalty for failing to ride without a valid ticket.

Tickets are available from the manned ticket booths. Good luck finding these apart from anywhere that’s not the Doge’s Palace area. You can also buy tickets from the Vaporetto staff on the boat itself. I’m sure that a little home work in advance solves the mystery of where the manned booths are. Ticket cost on the boat is €7.50 per person for a single journey or €20 per person for an all day ticket. But bought at a manned booth, it’s €1.50 for the disabled person and your carer for one journey. I found getting tickets, other than from a manned booth, to be a little hit and miss. But, generally, the whole Vaporetto experience worked. Like all travel experiences, go for it and enjoy the journey but do your homework first. There are literally loads of videos on YouTube for riding the Vaporetto as a wheelchair user.

Accessible Venice

The one link that I would recommend to any wheelchair user planning a Venice trip is the Accessible Venice site https://www.comune.venezia.it/en/content/barriers-free-itineraries This provides barrier free routes around all of Venice’s main areas, even Murano and Burano. All of their maps can be downloaded as PDFs and saved to your device.

The Sights

I’m not going to talk about sights and sightseeing in Venice. It’s a personal choice what you see. There are loads of resources online. And, choosing things to see and do is all part of the fun. For me Venice is one fabulous, living, working museum where the exterior of the buildings themselves are amazingly and visually sufficient. Add to this the many opportunities for people watching and prosecco slurping and you don’t feel you have to see every interior. But those interiors that you do see…WOW!

The sights that I will mention, (briefly) are The Doge’s Palace and St. Mark’s Basilica. These, for me, are the two ‘must’ sees. They are worth the effort. Both have disabled access points. Keep your eyes open for the attraction staff – albeit they’ll have their eyes open for you. As a wheelchair user you skip the queue, (line) and are shepherded in. The Doges Palace has a lift that allows you to access all floors and rooms. Unfortunately not the Bridge of Sighs, (too narrow for a wheelchair). But you can’t expect a culture to start to knock lumps out of their history. The Basilica uses a series of ramps so you can get inside. Cost for a wheelchair user and carer is free.

But for me, the best parts of Venice are the quieter parts. The parts where there are little deserted squares and fewer, (if any) tourists.

I can’t finish this post without a funny story that shows the power of the wheelchair in bringing people together. This time it was an Aussie and a Pom, and the 1st time ever that this particular Aussie had ever felt compelled to help a Pom, (his words verbatim).

Our hotel room had an access ramp from the hotel landing into the bedroom. The night before the ‘incident’ we’d had a more difficult time getting off the Vaporetto. Not sure if it was the tide or the Prosecco but it was difficult. Consequently, the wheelchair’s anti-tip bar had been folded away. I’m guessing you have a good idea what happened next.

Anyhow, going down for breakfast I was reversing down the ramp when I felt the wheelchair start to tip back. No worries, the tip bar will stop me. Well, it would have done if it was on. But some dozy sod had left it off from the previous night’s Vaporetto ride.

The chair just tipped back. It made an almighty noise as, 1st the back of the wheelchair seat, followed by me, hit the wooden landing! I was sat, still in my chair, with my back on the floor and my knees pointing to the ceiling. There was a fair amount of WTF style groaning before a concerned Aussie head shot round the corner, looking what had happened and asking if I was alright and needed help.

The funny part came a split second later when the Aussie’s wife’s head shot round the same corner, all meerkat like. On seeing the carnage, her expert assessment was “leave him alone Geoff. He’s only doing his exercises”. In her eyes I was doing my everyday, 1st thing in a morning ab crunches. I kid you not. LOL!

Venice was all I hoped it would be and more besides. It was a challenge, (but I always knew it would be – this was part of the attraction for me), but we did it and boy would I recommend it, although maybe skip the ab crunches.