Victory: getting our bikes from Lido to Venice. It turns out there is an unwritten rule that Venice water buses (shown below) do not carry bikes. This makes sense because 1) It is not allowed to ride a bike in Venice and 2) The water buses are always crowded. Bear in mind that we were taking two tandems into Venice, with a loaded trailer (!). Here was our techniqe: Run down to the dock and ask the captain “Due bike abordo?” in your best bad Italian. He says ok, but only for one stop (the first stop on Venice). Then you run back and get the family with two cute bambinis pushing the gigantic tandems and trailer. He freaks out a little, then says “This is a gift to you”. He was right.

A Venetian vaporetto, or water bus

We reach Venice safely, and begin walking our bikes the ⅔ mile to our hotel. This is when we realize there is a problem: Venice has lots of canals, and lots of foot bridges, and almost all of them have just stairs. We had two foot bridges to cross with our bikes to get to the hotel. Tandems are heavy- it was hard.

Arriving in Venice

We make it to our hotel, which was wonderful, and have a fantastic time the next day just wandering around Venice. We pick up our train tickets at the Venice train station, which is on the other side of the island, and start walking home. On the way, we count 21 foot bridges with stairs, plus three more with ramps, that we would have to cross with all of our stuff (!) to get back to the train station. (There is a map online called “Accessible Venice” Ha ha! That’s funny.)

We realize then that walking to the train station is not possible. We need another plan. Here is our list of options:

1. Hire a water taxi
2. Beg a water bus captain to let us take the bikes
3. Something else please please oh God please
4. Walk the bikes (over 24 bridges) all the way.

That night we talk to a fantastic receptionist at the hotel who helps us a lot. It turns out there is a #17 ferry from Lido that takes you to the western end of Venice, where the causeway and the train station are. If we can’t get on a water bus to the station, we could possibly take the water bus only two stops in the other direction, back to Lido, and take the #17 from there to the station. This could actually work! It is our Plan C.

Which was good because Plan A is a complete loser. Water taxis look like this:

There is no way we would fit two tandems in that. Also an important fact is that we are leaving on a Sunday. Many Venice shops are closed on Sunday, and so lots of workers take the day off, including the taxis but not the buses. So the bad news is that a taxi would be hard to come by and expensive, but the good news is there would be no commuters on the buses, only tourists like us. The other thing to know is that the water bus we need to take, the #1, is quite possibly the most scenic bus ride in the world, because it follows the Grand Canal from our humble eastern shoreline to the train station, like so:

During the day it is always crowded, but we would hit it at 7 am on Sunday morning, (otherwise known as Venetian bedtime). So, here was our list:

1. Hire a water taxi
2. Beg a water bus captain to let us take the bikes
3. Water bus to Lido, then #17 Ferry to station (Thanks, God!)
4. Walk the bikes (over 21 bridges) all the way.

To help with #2, (i.e. the new #1) the receptionist gave us this handy speech to give the captain. It’s in Venetian, not just in Italian:

Please! We must go all the way to the train station and we have two bikes with us! (something something) Captain!

Angie promptly memorized it. The next morning, we were on the waterfront at 7 am, waiting for the first #1 bus to come by. When it approached, Angie ran onto the dock to give her speech. Answer: No. No bikes on the water bus. We were a little discouraged, but decided to keep trying until 8 am, when we would move to option #3. When the next bus came, Angie ran out to meet it, and the girls and I spent a few nervous seconds, until Angie came back saying “hurry!” and we grabbed all our stuff, including both bikes and the trailer, and ran out to the boat. We had made it on to the water bus! From there, we just watched views like these go by as we rode to the train station.

One of the bigger foot bridges in the background. We would have had to cross that one!

That was not the end of the hardship of that day. Tandems don’t fit well in most elevators, for example. But we had made it on and off Venice with our bikes!