The train stops at the station because there is no future for it; the road to the steamer stops at the pier because otherwise it would run into the water.
Standing there, looking north, one sees nothing but the still, land-locked lagoon with red and umber and orange-sailed fishing-boats, and tiny islands here and there.

But only ten miles away, due north, is Venice.

And a steamer leaves several times a day to take you there, gently and loiteringly, in the Venetian manner, in two hours, with pauses at odd little places _en route_.

And that is the way to enter Venice, because not only do you approach her by sea, as is right, Venice being the bride of the sea not merely by poetical tradition but as a solemn and wonderful fact, but you see her from afar, and gradually more and more is disclosed, and your first near view, sudden and complete as you skirt the island of S.Giorgio Maggiore, has all the most desired ingredients: the Campanile of S.Marco, S.Marco's domes, the Doges' Palace, S.Theodore on one column and the Lion on the other, the Custom House, S.Maria della Salute, the blue Merceria clock, all the business of the Riva, and a gondola under your very prow.
That is why one should come to Venice from Chioggia.
The other sea approach is from Fusina, at the end of an electric-tram line from Padua.

If the Chioggia scheme is too difficult, then the Fusina route should be taken, for it is simplicity itself.