How to get around Venice with limited mobility...

Venice can be a difficult city for people with limited mobility issues to navigate. When planning this trip I found several travel sites and people that said Venice was too hard for someone who has any issues with walking and steps (i.e. wheelchair dependent, people bad knees, the elderly, etc), and there were "easier" places to visit. This is not acceptable to me. If you want to go to Venice, go, no matter how you are physically limited. Venice is an amazingly beautiful, unique, cannot miss place. There really is no other city like it. It is as beautiful as you see in movies and as interesting as all the travel shows make it out to be. So then how do you do it. 

How do you get around Venice with limited mobility. Here's a couple things I think that helped.

1. Don't have a crazy agenda. Because I am such a planner, many of the places we went in Europe I had a million things for us to see and do. Often times too many, and we wouldn't be able to get to all of them. In Venice, for some reason (maybe divine intervention) I didn't have a million things planed. We took our time getting places and mainly just enjoyed the fact that we were in such a beautiful place.

2. Water buses. There are a couple of different ways to get around Venice other than walking. All of them being a boat. You can hire a water taxi, which will take you directly where you want to go, or as close as you can get, but is the more expensive option. You could take a Gondola ride, but I would do this as just a fun ride around the canals, not as a mode of transportation. Lastly, there are the Water Buses. This is a great way to get to different sites with less walking. The main line that runs down the grand canal is also a fun ride just for the great views along the way. The key is to stay close to the Grand Canal, we stayed close but still had 1 big bridge and 1 small bridge to cross to get to the bus station. You can stay right on the canal, but that does cost more money. The good thing about the water bus too is you are able to by day passes or even multiple day passes, which allows you to ride as many times as you want within that period.

3. Understand where you are. Before you leave learn about Venice. Do as much research as you can and understand the layout of the little Island. Venice is a city built on water. The canals are the streets of the city, the "Grand Canal" is the "Main St." of Venice. As mentioned above you can take the Water Bus along the Grand Canal as a great way to eliminate walking. Anytime you cross over a canal you will be crossing on a bridge and it will have steps. Some bridges are bigger and have numerous steps. The more you learn about Venice's layout the better you can navigate the easiest way for you to get around the island. The Island itself is pretty small, even with my bad knee I was able to walk to a number of places.

Even if all you do is ride the water bus from the top of the island, right outside the train station, to the bottom of the island, St. Mark's Square, you will see so many wonderful things. One other note. I did see one wheel chair when I was there, but I never figured out how they managed the steps on the bridges, but I guess it is possible.