Venice with children

[AJ37]

We are going to Venice - the Lido area - this summer with our 2 daughters, aged 3 and 7. Any suggestions of where to go - activity wise and restaurant based - or any other tips or ideas would be VERY WELCOME.

Hello we have just come back from staying near Venice with our dd 5 and ds 3. We stayed in a campsite near lido di jesolo. We had a great time. The flight into Venice was fine (it was our first holiday abroad for 6 years!). We spent most of the holiday on campsite (union lido) which was excellent but we did take a day trip to Venice. We thought all the boats at punta sabioni were the vaporetto so we made a mistake & would have been better getting an all day ticket. Under sixes go free so it wod have been best way to get about. Five year old ended up walking too far & getting grumpy! Don't take a buggy to Venice if you can avoid it as there are bridges every two seconds. The public toilets cost 1 euro. Fifty so try to use the bars where possible. They let me sneak in with 3 year old boy ! The Italians are very child friendly but be prepared for slow service!

We went to Venice when dd1 was 10 months, we stayed on a small island that used to be a monastry and is now a college/learning centre that lts out its rooms for companies to use in non-term time.lido is great, boat taxi trips are great, the Italians are sooooo family friendly, one older lady stood up at a boat stop so I could have a seat to feed dd, I tried to say I would be fine standing, but she pretty much insisted that I sat! (and as soon as I had finished wanted the seat back before I had a chance to see if I could see her to offer it!!)
I would say, beware pickpockets and smokers (at least 2 flicked ash on my baby and didn't apologise when I pointed out what they had done)
And mostly - have a great holiday, hope you get good weather!!!

We stayed on the LIdo two years ago and visited the main island. I would say it is family friendly although we were sans enfants. The water taxis are brillaint. However, if you are going in July/August it will be BOILING - we wne late June and that was hot. A lot of the beaches on the LIdo are private, there is a public one but it gets very crowded very early. And costs an arm and a leg to rent a parasol which is necessary in the heat. .

Looking at union lido for August 2013 for the last week in August ( yes - i know its a year ahead !).
A 3 bed mobile with aircon. It is £350 cheaper than going early August. I have a couple of questions :

Will it still be warm by end of August and are any of the outdoor pools heated?

Has anyone driven there? Thought we would tour down over a couple of days so any suggestions on where to stop would be appreciated.

What is best mosy spray to get ?

Thx

Yes I've been to union lido. Apparently best miso spray is deet and you need to apply it every two hours. On the plus side only myself not kids or husband were bitten. U r probably better off going late August in respect of the mosquitoes. U can get the spray from the pharmacy on site. We went mid may & most days the pools were warm enough (just one day it chucked it down so we went to jesolo to the sea life centre) the main pool at the aqua mare is heated. The caravan was also warm enough. We absolutely loved this campsite and I would love to return one day!

Meant also to say we flew as we are in Glasgow so flew from Edinburgh but hired a car & drove to the campsite from marco polo. It was very straight forward. You could do it easily by bus as there is a bus stop opposite campsite entrance. We hired a car as our son is only 3 and our daughter 5.

Thx for your comments. We have a reservation for the last week of August at Unio Lido. Only 14 months ahead.
Any ideas for stop off en route if we drive much appreciated !
Was thinking first stop Eurodisney for a couple of days! ( we are buying annual pass for this August so might as well get my monies worth!).

We stayed at the Union Lido last year. Fantastic site, we stayed at the end of August and it was very hot, although the Italians we spoke to seemed to think it was a heat wave.

The mossies there are quite nasty. They are called tiger mosquitoes. Might be worth googling. We didn't realise they were a special type. We bought the Jungle Formula spray and plug ins for the caravan (max strength, with deet). We got badly chomped on, and DHs leg went black. We visited the onsite pharmacy and got the stuff they recommended for us and the DCs, as well as some cream for DHs leg, and this was much more effective. You must apply day and night as they are always about, and the bites are big.

They also sell the citronella candles in all the camp shops which help if you are planning a glass of wine outside the caravan in the evening.

I'd second not taking a buggy to Venice too