S. Worthen | Weblog

Venice has finally put up a website, Venice Connected, allowing advanced, discounted purchase of useful things like transportation tickets (which are WAY overpriced for tourists), museums, and car parks (minimally discounted). A seven-day public transport ticket is 37.50 instead of 50.00 if you're going to be using the vaporetti or buses every day while visiting. Access to the city's wifi network is free if you book more than one day's worth of tickets through the site. The tickets need to be booked at least two weeks in advance.

For me, the most exciting part of this website is not that these tickets can be booked, but seeing the calendar, color-coded for low, medium, and high demand periods of time for months in advance. In other words, you can see for yourself when the city of Venice is likely to be at its most and least crowded by looking at this calendar. You don't have to do all the cross-referencing between seasons and holidays and regatte yourself. That's a wonderful, wonderful service to offer, even if they don't appear to have done so intentionally, as it will help visitors looking for off-season adventures in a quieter city figure out when to come visit.