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1 Garage San Marco Piazzale Roma
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Undercover car park, open 24 hours a day in the city centre. Under constant video surveillance, it can accommodate both cars and motorcycles.
Built entirely on islands, Venice is a car-free city. So you read in all the guidebooks, and maybe you panic a little because in your opinion the car is the most comfortable way to travel and you don’t want to give it up. Redimension your fears: if it is true that the centre of Venice can only be visited on foot or by water, it is not correct to say that the city is completely car-free.
Getting to Venice by car is possible, and even easy: in fact, many tourists choose this solution. Much more difficult, on the other hand, is to find a parking space in Venice because beyond a certain limit you cannot go any further and everyone wants to leave their car at the closest point to the start of the tourist routes.
Result? Expensive and always full car parks. Solution? Find out before you leave and strategically choose where to park in Venice.
You can park in the centre to be right in the heart of the city (and walk as little as possible) or just outside to save a bit and avoid the traffic. Or even better, you can park further away and arrive comfortably by boat, without stress and experiencing the fascinating experience of a trip on the lagoon.
The possibilities are many, so you will find the one that best suits your holiday. On this page you will find all the useful information and tips to ensure that going to Venice by car does not become a nightmare for you and your wallet.
The ‘limit point’ beyond which vehicles on the road (not only private cars but also buses and taxis) cannot proceed is called Piazzale Roma. It is an area of Venice that is a stone’s throw from the railway station and the cruise terminal. This is where you will find the closest car parks to the tourist attractions, which are the most convenient in terms of location but also the most expensive and the most in demand.
The largest car park in Piazzale Roma is the municipal garage, which has more than 2,000 parking spaces and 300 motorbike spaces on six floors. Prices are slightly lower than those of private car parks, which is why despite its large capacity it is almost always the first to be fully occupied.
If you want to park in the garage parks close to the centre of Venice, we strongly advise you to reserve your parking space before you leave. It is almost indispensable during the high season (Carnival, bridges, New Year’s Eve, Redeemer’s Day…), but we recommend doing so at other times too.
Remember that despite the very high prices, the car parks at Piazzale Roma and Tronchetto are almost always sold out: booking online not only allows you to save a little (and considering the rates, that’s not bad at all…) but above all guarantees that you will find a space when you arrive.
Below is a selection of proven private car parks in each area.
From Piazzale Roma you can easily walk to Venezia Santa Lucia station, the starting point of all the main tourist routes.
The distance is only 400 metres, about 5 minutes, and on the way you will cross the Ponte della Costituzione bridge, better known as the Calatrava bridge: inaugurated in 2008, it is the most modern bridge in Venice and has become a popular tourist attraction.
From Tronchetto you can reach Piazzale Roma in just 4 minutes with the People Mover, a fast shuttle service via land funicular.
If you have not come to Venice for a day trip and therefore have luggage with you, it is better to take a vaporetto to reach the area of your hotel or b&b: you will find them departing from both Piazzale Roma and Tronchetto.
Ferries also leave from Tronchetto for Lido di Venezia that allow you to bring your car to the island. However, it is not very convenient to bring your car to the Lido because you will then have to take a vaporetto to travel to the tourist areas in the centre, which are located on other islands.
Mestre is the Venice of the mainland, an area that from an administrative point of view is part of the same municipality but in reality is a completely different world. It is connected to the centre of Venice by the Ponte della Libertà, a road a couple of kilometres long that runs parallel to the railway and ends at Piazzale Roma.
Near the Venezia Mestre railway station there are some pay car parks that charge lower rates than the better-known ones in Piazzale Roma or Tronchetto: they represent the best compromise between price and convenience. Other pay car parks can be found in Via Torino, Ca’ Marcello, Piazzale Candiani and in the San Giuliano area.
If you are travelling in high season , parking in Mestre avoids the stress and loss of time caused by the long queues that are created on the Ponte della Libertà.
From Mestre you can comfortably reach the centre of Venice by taking a bus to Piazzale Roma of the local transport company ACTV or a train to Venezia Santa Lucia (the main railway station): the runs are very frequent, the journey takes a few minutes and the ticket costs one euro or a little more.
Mestre saves you queues on the Ponte della Libertà, but it is not exactly a quiet area. If you don’t like traffic and crowded car parks, the solution for you is to leave your car at Terminal Fusina.
This shaded car park is in another area that administratively is part of the municipality of Venice but is located on the mainland, further south than Mestre. It is famous because this is where Venice’s campsites are located and where the ferries to Greece embark.
Few tourists choose to park in Venice Fusina, yet this solution is very convenient (the area is easily reached from the motorway) and costs less than parking in the centre. The only disadvantage is the distance and the need to take a boat to get to the centre, and the connections from Fusina are less frequent than from Tronchetto or Piazzale Roma.
The same advantages can be had by parking your car at Punta Sabbioni, which is the southern end of the Cavallino coastline. This solution is recommended for those who want to make a trip to Venice during a beach holiday in Jesolo or another coastal resort.
Vaporetti (waterbuses) also depart from the pretty town of Chioggia to the centre of Venice, but there is no convenient parking near the landing stage (on the contrary, finding parking in the city is rather difficult) and we therefore advise against leaving your car here.
There are no land connections between the centre of Venice from Fusina or Punta Sabbioni.
If you park in Fusina, you will find the departure of the motorboats to the centre of Venice about 100 metres from the car park. Public service boats from Fusina arrive in the Zattere area, about a 15-minute walk from St Mark’s Square. The frequency is about one per hour and the journey time is only 20 minutes.
It is a more fascinating way to reach the city centre because it is less chaotic and allows you to arrive via the lagoon, already putting you in touch with the identity element of Venice par excellence.
The same romantic journey by water into the lagoon can be made with the vaporetti departing from Punta Sabbioni; some lines stop at the islands of Burano, Torcello and Murano before reaching the centre of Venice.
Is Venice the first stop on a holiday in Veneto where you want to travel by car but live a long way away so you need to arrive by plane? The perfect solution for you is to rent a car at Venice Airport… but after visiting the city.
The bus connections from the airport to the centre of Venice are very good and, as already mentioned, once you get to the centre you don’t need a car. You can then go to the centre by public transport, visit the city for a day or two as you like, reach the airport car rental agency by bus, continue your holiday by car and then by the same means return to the airport to catch your flight home.
Of course, it is also possible to rent a car in other locations, but since you have to take a car to get from Venice to the airport, it is better to do this so that you can take the car back to the same agency. This is a cheaper solution because it allows you to avoid the extra charge for returning the car to a different agency to the one where it was picked up.
Getting to Venice by car is very easy because the city is at the centre of one of the most important motorway junctions in Italy.
One of Italy’s main motorways passes through here, the A4 Turin-Trieste, which crosses the entire Po Valley connecting east and west; through ring roads and junctions Venice is connected to the motorway leading to Bologna, which in turn continues southwards via Florence and Rome or eastwards to Ancona. For those coming from the north, the motorway of reference is the A27 Venezia-Belluno.
Once off the motorway follow the signs for Venice, which will take you towards Ponte della Libertà and from there you will arrive at Tronchetto or Piazzale Roma. If you want to park in Mestre, you do not have to drive over the bridge.
For the Fusina terminal exit at the Mestre-Venezia tollgate and proceed in the direction of Ravenna until you meet the “Parking+Boat to Venice” arrows in the direction of Malcontenta-Fusina that will take you to the car park.
Punta Sabbioni can be reached from the A27 in the direction of the airport by following the signs for San Donà and Jesolo; from here continue to Lido del Cavallino and Punta Sabbioni.
Venice is about 3 hours’ drive from Milan, an hour and a half from Verona, 5 from Rome.Venice-Marco Polo airport is only 15 km away, while Treviso airport (sometimes referred to on the website of Ryanair and other low-cost airlines as Venice-Treviso) is 40 km away.
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