Travelling to Venice
There are many different travel options when considering your journey out to Venice for the first time. Most students, and indeed tutors, choose to travel by plane. It may seem daunting setting off and leaving family and friends for an entire term, it certainly helped me by meeting up with friends to fly out with. Indeed, even if you don't arrange this, it is inevitable to bump to a fellow Warwick student wandering about the same airport as you! If you fancy doing something more exciting, you could always get the train over to Venice! Over night trains from Paris provide a romantic alternative! Or even a cycle ride to Venice makes for an exciting way to reach the city, no doubt Humfrey will provide you with stories of the time a lecturer did this very thing!
Tips and advice:
Be wary of luggage restraints! I was repeatedly told this, but with little advice on where I could actually cut back! Certainly the advice of take less clothes and shoes would work, but can be hard in reality (for some of us at least)! However, you could cut back on the amount of toiletries you take, there are plenty of supermarkets and chemists that you can by this stuff from on the weekend you arrive. Stationary and pads of paper can all be bought in Venice too. Any heavy books that Warwick recommend you buy can often be taken in hand luggage!
Finally, if there are two of you over the weight limit and can't get it down, stuff some extra items in one person's bag and then you could share the charge between two of you! I wish I had thought of that before I handed over extra cash to British Airways!
Useful websites:
http://www.seat61.com/
Money in Venice
Money in Venice
Venice is undoubtedly an expensive city to visit. However, I doubt Venice could be done at such great value as the Venice term. One way to save a little money is to sort out the bank with the best deal. I had a Nationwide account whilst in Venice. Sadly Nationwide have now chosen to charge for withdrawels, like other banks, though they still seem to provide a competitive choice. A few people I know used the Caxton card with ease and success, so this is definitely something to look into.
Tips and advice:
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Billa on the Strada Nuova |
- Save a little money by shopping at your local supermarket! Billa and Coop were convenient and had good value food. Though be warned, the people at Billa like exact change!
- Take out larger sums of money, in order to incur less withdrawal charges from the pesky banks!
- Tickets for the Vaporetto are pricey, so rather than hopping on a boat, it is cheaper and lots of fun to walk everywhere.
Useful websites:
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/travel/cheap-travel-money
Internet
The Palazzo and Venetian libraries enable you to access the internet. However, it can also be useful to invest in a dongle in order to get the internet from your apartment, especially when the Palazzo is shut or you just want to relax at home, browsing the internet. A dongle is easily bought whilst you are in Venice, most students purchased theirs in the Vodafone shop by the Rialto Bridge. You can opt between differing price and time brackets, depending on how much internet you wish to have. You are not able to use Skype or MSN chat on this service, but apart from that the dongle works well. The Vodafone staff are helpful and will explain how to use the dongle.
When using your dongle on your laptop you can sign into Warwick's VPN Network Service. The link below will direct you to Warwick's VPN page. This allows you to access websites such as BCC iPlayer. With all the exciting things to Venice there is easily enough to entertain you, but it is nice to sit back and enjoy a program from home if you have the time!
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/its/servicessupport/networkservices/vpn
Internet
The Palazzo and Venetian libraries enable you to access the internet. However, it can also be useful to invest in a dongle in order to get the internet from your apartment, especially when the Palazzo is shut or you just want to relax at home, browsing the internet. A dongle is easily bought whilst you are in Venice, most students purchased theirs in the Vodafone shop by the Rialto Bridge. You can opt between differing price and time brackets, depending on how much internet you wish to have. You are not able to use Skype or MSN chat on this service, but apart from that the dongle works well. The Vodafone staff are helpful and will explain how to use the dongle.
When using your dongle on your laptop you can sign into Warwick's VPN Network Service. The link below will direct you to Warwick's VPN page. This allows you to access websites such as BCC iPlayer. With all the exciting things to Venice there is easily enough to entertain you, but it is nice to sit back and enjoy a program from home if you have the time!
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/its/servicessupport/networkservices/vpn
