A single trip on a vaporetto costs €7.50 (valid for 60 minutes), whether you take the boat for one stop or for a whole Grand Canal tour. Fortunately, there is a system designed for tourists that will help you save some serious money.

More Venice tips
• 10 Things to do in Venice on the cheap
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• Roll With It: Venice is not going to ban rolling bags

Tourist Travel Cards

In recent years ACTV (Venice’s bus and boat system) realized that they had to come up with a tourist transportation card, so they created several different types of “time-limited travelcard,” each valid for a different period of time.

Travel cards are available for:

1 Day: €21
2 Days: €30
3 Days: €40
7 Days: €60

There is also a three-day youth card (for people between 18-29 years old) that costs €28. (Prices are accurate as of June 2022. Visit the ACTV website for current prices.)

With these travel cards you can hop on and off any vaporetto (including those to the islands of Murano, Burano, and Torcello) and on all buses traveling within the city of Venice (including to Mestre and Marco Polo Airport). These cards eliminate the need to queue every time to buy a ticket and to carry change with you.

The tickets are not exactly cheap, but considering you have unlimited use of the transport system, they are well worth it. Just think how much it would cost if you wanted to visit Murano-Burano and Torcello and you had to pay for every single trip!

To learn more about the tickets, including instructions on how to use them, check out this handy ACTV webpage in English.

Where to buy Tourist transportation tickets

You can buy these transport passes at any vaporetto stop (there are usually ticket offices at the stops, otherwise you can buy on board and they almost always speaks English), in Piazzale Roma (in the ACTV ticket office), or in any tobacco shop that displays the “ACTV” sign. Here’s a full list of ticket offices.

You can also buy them online.

Tip: Consider Venezia Unica City Pass

In 2009, the Comune di Venezia introduced a combined card, City Pass Venezia Unica, for transport, museums, parking, and even Wi-Fi connections and access to public toilets. The prices vary because you can create your custom combination, depending on your needs during your trip. However, you can save up to 30% on a variety of museum passes. The savings vary depending on the period (low season, high season, special events, etc.).

Unfortunately, the card can only be purchased online and must be purchased more than two days before your arrival date in Venice. So the earlier you book it, the greater the saving. Since there is an initial cost just to buy the card, this pass is ideal for frequent visitors or those coming for a longer stay. For more information and to buy a card, visit the official website.

The post Venice: Save on vaporetto tickets with a Tourist Travel Card appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.

Yet so many travellers today, in their pursuit of speed, choose back-door routes into ancient ports, and thus fail to get the right perspective on their chosen destination.

Venice: Arriving in style

That’s one of the reasons why we at hidden europe are so keen on the Alilaguna water bus services that connect Venice’s Marco Polo airport with the city centre. Our favorite Alilaguna run is the “blue route” which takes 80 minutes to reach San Marco from the airport, with stops along the way at the island of Murano and the Venice Lido. The final run into San Marco is exquisite, with superb views of the Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore and tantalising glimpses, up beyond the landing stage at San Marco, to the seaward end of the Canal Grande.

Genoa connections

Last week, we hopped along the coast of Liguria by boat, and much enjoyed the forty-minute run from Pegli into Genoa’s old port on a local ferry. This was not one of those posh tourist boats, but rather a humble municipal ferry run by local company AMT Genova.

Pegli is a nice enough spot, worth a visit in itself. The ferry from Pegli quay to Genoa leaves ten times each day (six times daily at weekends and public holidays), and is a great deal. A modest outlay of €1.20 (€2 if purchased on board) will get you an AMT Genova ticket valid on the company’s buses and boat services (and local trains, too) for 90 minutes. Enough to allow you to cruise from Pegli to Genoa and back again if you wish.

Ports for the future

True, if you have time and funds to spare, you could board one of the stylish Grandi Navi Veloci (GNV) ferries in Tunis or Tangier and a day or two later arrive at the modern ferry terminal west of Genoa’s city centre. But the AMT ship, called the “Onda Azzurra,” outsmarts the GNV long distance ferries by sailing right into the very heart of Genoa’s old port. On the way over from Pegli, you’ll see thousands of cranes, skirt the wharves of a busy working port, and then gaze on Genoa at its best—a fabulous medley of palazzi and churches rising in tiers behind the old port.

It would be sheer perfection, had not traffic planners in the mid-sixties constructed an elevated highway that skirts the waterfront, so creating an eyesore that unhappily severs the visual link between the old port and the ancient city it once served. The “Strada sopraelevata” is an environmental disaster, a travesty that mocks a once handsome port, but built at a time when city planners thought that ports were a mere relic of history.

The renaissance of the Porto Antico in Genoa over the last fifteen years shows just how wrong those planners were. Today the quaysides bustle as visitors queue to see one of Europe’s largest aquariums, locals throng waterfront bars and restaurants, and migrants from Senegal tout some of the strangest designer handbags and sunglasses that we’ve ever seen.

Also see: Our recommended list of budget hotels in Venice.

The post Genoa and Venice by Boat: Europe’s port cities appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.