If you’re looking for somewhere quiet to stay while visiting Venice, Lido is the perfect spot. It’s a narrow strip of island about 7 miles long with several sandy beaches.
Getting there…
Across from the train station you can hop on the 5.1 or 5.2 vaporetto line from the Ferrovia stop. The trip takes about 20 minutes and you’ll be dropped off at Gran Viale S. Maria Elisabetta. There are several shops, hotels, and restaurants in this area as well as the bus lines to get around the island. To get near the beach areas take the A,B, or C bus to S. Antonio. You can also rent bicycles if you’d like to pedal around and explore on your way. I wouldn’t recommend walking, which is what we opted to do because there aren’t many sidewalks and cars drive pretty fast around the island. Also it was hot and walking with packs on wasn’t enjoyable.
Where to stay…
I’m definitely biased to the hotel we stayed at because we had such excellent service, but there are plenty of places to stay in Lido. I booked Hotel Rivamare the day before we went and they had one room left. The staff was helpful and spoke some English which was nice. I’m not fluent in Italian so with long sentences I find myself only comprehending half of the information and then trying to decipher the other half afterwards. We ended up getting a room with a queen bed and a twin to throw all of our shit on! The front of the hotel has a cute little patio area, we bought a bottle of wine and sat outside to read.
Lio Beach & Restaurant…
Lio beach is about a 500 ft walk from Hotel Rivamare, convenient right? The hotel staff gave us a coupon to rent two beach beds and an umbrella for the day at 15€. The water is very clean and there are lifeguards on duty during the day. The restaurant looks out onto the beach from an outdoor patio and has some bomb pizza. This is where we discovered pepperocini olive oil on pizza, life changing stuff. Dinner was reasonably priced, we got two pizzas, wine, and beer for 34€.
Lido is the perfect place to stay if you want somewhere quiet and relaxing to get away from the hustle and bustle of mainland Venice.