Premise: with this post I don't want to talk about anti-crisis measures or make political considerations about them but simply report a disservice, small or large, the reader will evaluate it in the tourism sector.
Last week I landed around hours 22 at Marco Polo airport of Venice with a low-cost flight from Vueling from the Barcelona. At the exit, after having collected my luggage, I went to the ticket office for bus and vaporetto tickets. I waited for my turn in the queue, together with my travel companions, mostly tourists headed to Venice and, having reached the counter, I learned that the last trip of the Sita bus for Padua it was (is) at 21.40.
But how? But what if I always came home by bus? .. Since August, the employee told me, I am been cut the last direct evening connections to Padua as well as other services during the day. It was not enough to increase the bus ticket from about 3.50 to 8 euros current, now also the cuts of the evening races. What to do now? I had to take the bus to the station Mestre (5 euros) and from there take the train to Padua.
I did the ticket for a regional at the vending machine (2.80 euros) and then I realized that there was only one intercity because the previous regional one of 22.31 was the last and we didn't arrive in time. But the supplement to whom do I pay that the ticket offices are closed? To the conductor of course ... another 3.70euro. (total Venice-Padua airport travel euro 11.50). To tell the truth, there would have been another solution and that is to take the bus at 23,50 pm from Mestre which arrives in Padua at 01,20 am.
For those arriving at Tessera airport at 22pm, reach Padua 3 hours and twenty minutes later I do not think the best and above all out of any reasoning oriented to the "service" to the citizen and even more to the tourist if we think that perhaps this generally has higher expectations (see timetables on the Trenitalia website). tourists arriving at Tessera airport is directed to Venice but this is a very weak argument for those wishing to try justify the cuts in racing in the evening considering the fact that there are still national and international flights arriving at Marco Polo after 21.40pm, the time of the last bus to Padua.
Whether they are Paduan, tourists, businessmen or anyone, not everyone has the opportunity to pay for a taxi or who simply want to do so and this lack of public transport service is a disadvantage in the context ofaccessibility of the city I think a good one business card for those who arrive. There are not a few national and international flights that stop in Venice between 22-24. In a Veneto first tourist region Italian for arrivals and presences (thanks to its great variety in the offer: cities of art, walled cities, mountains with the spearhead of the Dolomites, sea, Lake Garda, Po delta etc) Padua plays an important role as destination of cultural tourism and also of business "tourism" as well as to exert a great tourist attraction is the whole regional territory in a widespread way.
Alberto Botton Virgil Padua
