By Georgia Nicklin, BSc Finance and Management with the University of Venice at the ICMA Centre, Henley Business School.
As I’ve mentioned before, I chose to get around Venice everyday by foot. This was the cheapest form of travel and I was able to admire the views and discover new places too!
A lot of my friends took the vaporetto from time to time and there is a student discount card. You pay €10 to buy the card and then €25 per month for unlimited travel, which included local buses into mainland Mestre too.
Airport
Getting to the airport was surprisingly fast. Buses run every 20 minutes from Piazzale Roma to ‘Venezia Marco Polo Aeroporto’. It takes only 20 minutes to get to the airport and is a pretty cheap fare – €8 one way or €15 return.
Flights from Marco Polo to London and other UK regional airports are with aircraft providers: easyJet, British Airways, and Jet2.com. When booking in advance, I could get return flights for around £50, but if I left it last minute then the price would be closer to £100 (or more in peak season).
Marco Polo is the main (and nicer) airport but there is also an airport called ‘Treviso Aeroporto’, which is a lot smaller and 20 minutes further away but has the advantage of operating cheap flights, such as Ryanair. The bus fare from Piazzale Roma to Treviso is €12 one way or €22 return.
Whilst I preferred Marco Polo, I was sometimes able to get a flight back to London from Treviso for as cheap as €12, which is cheaper than my train fare home from Reading!
Travelling around Italy
When travelling around Italy, ‘TrenItalia’ (the Italian version of Virgin trains, let’s say), became my best friend. The actual trains had really nice interiors with air conditioning, plug sockets, comfy seats and food on board. Fares were cheap if you booked in advance. For example, I managed to get return tickets to Milan for €30 instead of €60!
The beauty of travelling by train was that it was super quick and easy – the train station (Venezia Santa Lucia/Ferrovia) was right by Piazzale Roma in central Venice. Travel times for some of the main cities were:
- Milan: 2 hours
- Florence: 2 hours
- Rome: 4 hours
- Bologna: 1 hour
- Verona: 30 minutes
Some of my friends who came from outside of Europe, such as Asia, Australia, etc., ventured out even further and decided to travel to Germany, Hungary, Spain. Rather than flying, they took overnight buses with a company called FlixBus where fares were sometimes as little as €5!
I’m in my penultimate year of university… what about interviews for internships?
I applied for lots (and lots) of internships in September 2016 at investment banks, where I got through to assessment centres that required me to be there physically on the day rather than virtually on Skype. This wasn’t a problem at all though as the companies always expensed my travel (usually up to £500!) so I always made the interview.
It may sound bizarre to take a flight just for an interview, but you’d be surprised how common it is among international students. At assessment centres, I met students who flew into London on the morning of the interview from Germany, Austria, Italy, etc.
It’s only a two hour flight from Venice to London and once you’re used to it (and packing light with accessible hand luggage) it becomes second nature. I’ve worked out that I took 14 flights back to London from Venice just for interviews, and on one occasion this was three times in one week!
I used to be afraid of flying so, if anything, this has completely abandoned my fear and I now enjoy flying. It’s also allowed me to become much more independent and organised, having to plan it around my lectures and have a suitcase at the ready.
Georgia is a student at the ICMA Centre studying BSc Finance and Management. The degree is a unique three year experience, where students spend their second year at Ca’ Foscari, University of Venice. As the first student from Reading to have completed this part of the programme, we’ve got Georgia to share her experiences during her year in Venice.
In part six, Georgia will tell us about the best bits of her experience.
Find out more about our BSc Finance and Management course.