Vaporetto in Venice—a guide.

Let’s say you’ve just arrived at the train station in Venice along with a few thousand other tourists, and you need to take a vaporetto to your hotel. The hotel website tells you to take the vaporetto line #4.2 to the “Crea” vaporetto stop.

First, as you walk out of the train station, you must let the fantastic sight of Venice sink in a minute. The large courtyard in front of the train station ends at the Grand Canal. Boats of all sizes will be zig-zagging the canal.

You will see five vaporetto stops bobbing in the water of the canal in front of the train station. Each vaporetto stop is marked with either an “A,” “B,” “C,” “D,” or “E.”

First things first—you need a ticket. Tickets are sold by people inside booths near the canal or there are ticket machines. The machines are easy to use, you can choose from a variety of languages, and you can pay with a credit card or euros. A single ticket to get to your hotel will cost 7.50 euros.

With ticket in hand, find which of the five vaporetto stops is for line #4.2 to your hotel by reading the signs on the outside of each stop. On the sign for stop “D” are two circles—one with a 4.2 inside and the other with a 5.2 inside. So stop “D” handles two vaporetto lines, including #4.2 to your hotel.

Before entering the building to wait for your vaporetto to arrive, you must validate your ticket to avoid very expensive fines. To validate, merely hold your ticket underneath the validator device and the device will beep and flash a green light.

With your validated ticket in hand, you can walk the gangway into your vaporetto stop, the bobbing building on the canal, and wait inside until vaporetto #4.2 pulls up along the canal side of the stop.

As you wait, please do not block the vaporetto entrance with your big suitcase, forcing everyone to squeeze around you. Not cool and only one reason why Venetians are perpetually angry at tourists.

Once you have found your vaporetto and gotten on, how do you know when to get off? Some vaporettos have an electronic announcement system. Many do not. Most people stand with their luggage on the top open area of the vaporetto so they can see the names of approaching stops.

Instead, I recommend going inside the vaporetto and sitting down. As you face the front you will notice a sign listing all the stops on the line. You can look at the sign and follow along as you leave the train station (called Ferrovia). The stop after Ferrovie is “Guglie” and the stop after that is “Crea,” the stop you need for your hotel. After the vaporetto leaves the Guglie stop, you can make your way to the exit.

Good luck getting past all the people crowded in the open area blocking the exit. Try saying “Mi scusi” (mee skoo zee) as you edge past.