# Is Mestre a Good Area to Stay in Venice? Map & Verdict Verdict: Mixed. Fine for some travellers, wrong for others. Interactive map: https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-venice/mestre Every Venice district: https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-venice.md The mainland city where most Venetians actually live. Rooms cost a fraction of the island's and the train takes 11 minutes, but you will never see Venice at 07:00 or at midnight. Facts: 45 min walk to Piazza San Marco; 20 min to the airport; 60 min to the beach; price €; best for budget, families, business trips, longer stays; lines T1, T2. Safety: Mixed after dark. The streets immediately around Venezia Mestre station, Via Piave and Via Cappuccina in particular, have a long-standing reputation for drug dealing and are unpleasant on foot late at night. The rest of Mestre is an ordinary suburb. Mestre is the mainland half of the comune, and it is where the waiters, the shopkeepers and a fair number of the gondoliers go home. For a traveller it is a normal post-war Italian city: a pedestrianised centre around Piazza Ferretto, two parks, ordinary supermarkets, and hotels at prices the island cannot approach. The logistics are genuinely good. Trains to Venezia Santa Lucia take 11 minutes and run frequently, buses reach Piazzale Roma in about 20, Marco Polo airport is 20 minutes away, and you can park a car, which is impossible in Venice and expensive at Piazzale Roma. On a fixed budget, or with a family that needs two rooms, the arithmetic is hard to argue with. The arithmetic is also not the whole story. Venice before 09:00 and after 19:00, with the day boats gone and the calli empty, is the reason to go to Venice at all, and staying in Mestre is choosing to miss both ends of it. Some of the saving comes back as train fares, paid toilets and the surcharge for sitting down at a cafe. If the choice is four nights in Mestre or two on the island, take the two. What works: - The cheapest beds in the comune by a wide margin, including hostels and three-star chains. - Trains to Venezia Santa Lucia take 11 minutes and run frequently until late. - Marco Polo airport is about 20 minutes by bus, against an hour or more from most of the island. - You can park a car here, and you can eat and drink at ordinary Italian prices. - Trams T1 and T2 and a full bus network, so getting about does not depend on a boat timetable. What does not: - You are not in Venice. Every evening ends with a bus or a train and a walk at the other end. - The two best hours in Venice, before 09:00 and after 19:00, are the two you will not be there for. - Part of the saving goes straight back on fares, paid toilets and sit-down charges on the island. - Mestre itself is an ordinary suburb with nothing much to walk out to in the evening. - The 45 minutes to San Marco is a walk, a train and another walk, not a stroll. Hotels in Mestre: https://www.stay22.com/allez/booking?aid=stayzones&link=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.booking.com%2Fsearchresults.html%3Fdest_id%3D4938%26dest_type%3Ddistrict%26group_adults%3D2%26no_rooms%3D1 ## Other districts in Venice - [San Marco](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-venice/san-marco): Mixed. The sights are here and so is everybody else. You pay the top rate in Venice to be five minutes from the Basilica, and you share every street with the day-trip crowd from 10:00 to 18:00. - [Cannaregio](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-venice/cannaregio): Recommended. The best value inside Venice. Residents, the oldest Jewish ghetto in Europe, and a canal-side strip of bars that is still busy at midnight, with the station five minutes away when you leave. - [Dorsoduro](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-venice/dorsoduro): Recommended. Art at one end, students at the other. The Accademia and the Guggenheim, the sunny Zattere promenade, and the only square in Venice that is still loud at 01:00. - [Castello](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-venice/castello): Recommended. The largest sestiere and the only one where you can watch Venetians buy their groceries. The western edge is minutes from San Marco; the eastern end is where the rent is cheap and the Biennale happens. - [San Polo](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-venice/san-polo): Recommended. The smallest sestiere and the one Venetians still shop in. The Rialto market at one end, the densest run of bacari in the city in the middle, and twelve minutes on foot to San Marco. - [Santa Croce](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-venice/santa-croce): Mixed. Two districts wearing one name. The Piazzale Roma end is a bus station and a multi-storey car park; the eastern half around San Giacomo dell'Orio is one of the quietest corners of the old city. - [Giudecca](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-venice/giudecca): Mixed. A separate island four minutes across the water from the Zattere. Bigger rooms for less money and the best view of Venice there is, in exchange for a vaporetto timetable that runs your evenings.