#VisitLidoVenice
Stay updated on the Venice Lido #VisitLidoVenice
Search
Events & conferences
Book now Book now
Search
Interactive map
Weather
Events & conferences
Weather forecast
Today
15°
cielo sereno
Previsioni meteorologiche Arpav
Useful numbers
Travel information
+39 041 8627117
Taxi service
+39 041 5265974
Luggage transfer
+39 041 713719
Local public transport network
+39 041 041
Emergency numbers
Emergencies
112
Coast Guard
1530
Medical Service
+39 041 2385668
ATM block
800 822 056
// Booking
Back to the journal

The first water bus in Venice

Insights

PUBLIC TRANSPORT IN VENICE WAS BORN IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, AND IT WAS INSPIRED BY THE SEINE WATER BUSES.

The city of Venice, the island of Lido and their citizens are deeply linked to water and to traveling on boats. Their buses are water buses, taxis glide over the water and even ambulances arrive along the lagoon.

 

The history of the first water bus (“vaporetto” in Italian and batèo, in Venetian dialect) begins in 1881. In that year, in fact, the “Regina Margherita” was launched, marked by the number 1.
It was the first to cross the Grand Canal, until then a monopoly of gondoliers, and it was born from the idea of Alessandro Finella, a Piedmontese based in Venice, who copied it from the French bateaux mouches, steamboats that at the time were already sailing on the Seine.

 

The Regina Margherita was built in France, thanks to the “Compagnie des Bateaux Omnibus de Venise” of Paris, and on 7th of May it left Nantes arriving on 11th of June 1881 in Venice, after having sailed along the Atlantic coast and circumnavigated Italy.

 

This is how public transport was born in Venice, and the following year another eight water buses were added to the Regina Margherita, all welcomed with enthusiasm by the population

Journal
Tempio votivo lido venezia
Pellestrina Venezia
Book now