Venice, Italy — Getting Our Bearings
Courtney and I flew into Venice on the evening of May 11th, 2026, as the beginning of my 50th birthday trip. We were going to spend three weeks in Italy and Croatia, absorbing as much art, history and adventure as 24 hours a day would allow. Our first leg of the trip in Venice would last from May 12th through May 16th, when we would travel to Cortina.
We chose to stay at the Hotel Al Codega, in the heart of the San Marco district. The Al Codega is a family-run three-star hotel that met our requirements due to being centrally located to many of the places we planned to visit. After landing, we hopped on board a water taxi, booked through the hotel, to quickly get us to our hotel after flying all night. We quickly learned that private taxi service in Venice is an expensive form of transportation; the ride from the airport cost €170. The water taxi dropped us at the Bacino Orseolo station, which was about 200 meters away from the hotel. The water taxi driver held onto the side of the canal while I unloaded our bags, helped Courtney off the boat, and then began our trek to the hotel through tiny alleyways with many twists and turns. Venice is such a unique place, it is hard to prepare oneself for the experience of figuring out how to get around or where exactly you find yourself. I'm sure you could make this easier on yourself if you stayed at a hotel on the Grand Canal, but be prepared for some sticker shock.
Luckily, our hotel's location allowed us to get underway easily, as we were near most of the sites you'll find on this website that we visited. So, for the first couple of days, we stuck to hoofing it on our own two feet, with the exception of a private gondola ride we started just outside of the Doge's Palace. By Day 3 we started figuring out how to get around the city using public transportation, such as the Vaporetto, which will get you up and down the Grand Canal, and the Traghetto, which will get you across the Grand Canal when you find yourself too far away from a bridge. If I recall correctly, the Vaporetto costs €25 a day for a day pass and the Traghetto is only €2 per ride. As with most locations in Europe, keep €1 and €2 coins handy when out and about.
I don't have a lot of memories or any photos of the restaurants we ate at. I realize for many folks the cuisine is a big reason why they travel to Italy, but food was a bit of an afterthought as there were just so many incredible destinations to take in. The good news is that all the food was delicious, and we easily found great tasting restaurants everywhere we went without putting a lot of thought and planning into that part of our trip.
On our final morning in Venice, we awoke early so we could catch the first Vaporetto pick-up at the Rialto station. We took the Vaporetto to the end of the line, at the Piazzale Roma, where we caught a ride on the Cortina Express on our way to Cortina d'Ampezzo.
